Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant F. Grissell, Coldstream Guards

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.), together with related I.D. disc, extremely fine (3) £180-220

Francis Grissell, the son of T. de la G. Grissell of Redisham Hall, Beccles, Suffolk, was educated at Harrow, and qualified as architect in 1913, when as a recently appointed A.R.I.B.A., he accepted a three year enagagement in Hong Kong.

He returned home in 1915 to enlist in the Artists Rifles and was subsequently commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in October of the same year. Grissell was killed by the explosion of a German hand-grenade on 15 September 1916, after reaching the second objective during the Guards’ advance near Ginchy. He was 30 years old, has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial; one of his brothers, Lieutenant-Colonel B. S. Grissell, D.S.O., was killed in action near Gaza in the folllowing year.

The action in which Grissell fell on 15 September 1916 was fought out near Ginchy on the Somme, the Coldstream Guards sustaining casualties of 40 Officers and 1326 other ranks. The engagement was subsequently featured in The Illustrated London News of 18 November 1916, an artist’s impression of the Coldstreamers (or “Lily Whites”) pressing forward under heavy machine-gun fire being accompanied by the following text:

‘Several regiments of Guards, including the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers and the Irish, played a splendid part in the great battle of September 15, which resulted in the capture of Martinpuich and Courcelette and over 2300 prisoners. Our artist’s drawing has been made from an officer’s material just to hand. The ground in front of the German trenches, he says, was nothing else but shell-holes. There were three broken trees standing out above the mist, by which the line advanced. Originally they started shoulder to shoulder with bayonets at the charge in the good old style. Describing the same event, Mr. Philip Gibbs writes: ‘The Guards had their full share in the fighting ... These splendid men so tall and proper, so hard and fine, went away as one might imagine the old knights and yeomen of England at Agincourt. For the first time in the history of the Coldstreamers, three battalions of them charged in line, great solid waves of men, as a fine a sight as the world could show. Behind them were the Grenadiers, and, again behind these men the Irish. They had not gone more than 200 yards before they came under the enfilade fire of massed machine-guns ... Gaps were made in the ranks, but they closed up. The wounded did not call for help, but cheered on those who swept past and on, shouting “Go on, Lily Whites” - which is the name for the Coldstreamers - “get at ‘em Lily Whites!” ... the Guards went on. Then they were checked by two lines of trenches, wired and defended by machine-guns and bombers ... The Guards took them by frontal assault full in the face of continual blasts of machine-gun bullets. There was hard and desperate fighting. The Germans defended themselves to the death ... By that time the Irish Guards had joined the others. All the Guards were together, and together they passed the trenches ... going steadily deeper into the enemy country until they were 2000 yards from their starting place ... They fought grandly.’ ’

Lieutenant-Colonel J. V. Campbell, D.S.O., of the 3rd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, who rallied his Guardsmen with a hunting horn, and led them to the sunken road (Flers Road), was awarded a well-deserved V.C.; see Westlake’s British Battalions on the Somme for a modern day photograph of the sunken road and further details.

Sold with a copy M.C., G.V.R. and 1914-15 Star trio, the latter with erased naming, mounted as worn, with related set of dress miniatures, in old leather case, the whole attributed to the recipient’s brother, Lieutenant-Colonel T. de la G. Grissell, Suffolk Yeomanry, attached Suffolk Regiment; brief research included.

Also see Lot 1209 for other family awards.