Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Captain B. H. Selby, Northumberland Fusiliers

India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1908 (Ltt., 1st Bn. N. Fusilrs.); 1914 Star, with clasp (Capt., North’d Fus.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.); Delhi Durbar 1911, regimentally inscribed, ‘Lieut. B. H. Selby, 1/5 Fus. King’s Colour 11.12.11.’ the third extensively corrected, contact marks to the earlier awards, otherwise very fine and rather better (5) £300-400

Beauchamp Henry Selby was born in London in June 1882 and was educated at Harrow and at Sandhurst. Commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers in March 1901, he was advanced to Lieutenant in May of the following year, and transferred to the 1st Battalion in India in 1906, where, in the North West Frontier operations of 1908, he was present at the action at Matta. He also carried the Regiment’s colour at the Delhi Durbar of 1911.

Selby, ‘who excelled in three particulars: as a boxer, a marksman and a hunter’, was shot by an enemy sniper while serving in the trenches near Vailly on 19 September 1914, and never recovered consciousness after being hit; a portrait photograph of him appears in St. George’s Gazette, 31 October 1914, together with an obituary notice.