Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War Gallipoli operations D.S.C. attributed to Lieutenant E. H. Lamb, Royal Marines, attached Royal Naval Division

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved ‘Lieut. E. H. Lamb, R.M., 1915’, in its worn Garrard & Co. case of issue, good very fine £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Selection of Medals from the Collection of the Late Noel Morris.

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D.S.C. London Gazette 7 November 1915.

Ernest Horace Lamb was born at Adelaide, Australia in May 1878, the eldest son of Sir Horace Lamb, a professor of mathematics. Educated back in the U.K. at Manchester Grammar School and Owen’s College, young Ernest gained a first class honours degree in engineering and was working as a Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at London University by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914.

Commissioned into Royal Marines Divisional Engineers in September 1914, Lamb was embarked for Gallipoli with the Royal Naval Division in March 1915, where he distinguished himself in the landings at Anzac and Cape Helles and was awarded the D.S.C. in addition to twice being mentioned in despatches (London Gazettes 22 September 1915 and 11 December 1915 refer). Evacuated home in January 1916, as a result of dysentery, he transferred to the R.N.V.R. for special duties at Vernon that March, and in the following year had charge of work on special designs for naval mining appliances at Gunwharf.

Lamb was finally demobilised in 1919 and went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career at London University, where he was Vice-Principal of Queen Mary College until his retirement in 1945. He died in October 1946.