Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Corporal S. W. Simmons, 13th Middlesex (Queen’s Westminster) Volunteer Rifles and City of London Imperial Volunteers, later Lincolnshire Regiment and Second Lieutenant, South Lancashire Regiment

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (315 Cpl. S. W. Simmons, C.I.V.); British War and Victory Medals (32757 Cpl. S. W. Simmons Linc. R.); together with nine Queen’s Westminster Volunteer Rifles sports medals (gymnastics, boxing, &c.), seven silver, two bronze, dated between 1896 and 1899, named to Private Simmons and all attractively mounted for display on a green velvet lined, mahogany shield, the centre glazed and surrounded by 15 Queen’s Westminster’s buttons and 6 C.I.V. buttons, the whole surmounted by four cap badges: Queen’s Westminster Volunteer Rifles sergeant’s pouch belt badge, Lincolnshire Regiment officer’s cap badge, Somerset Light Infantry other ranks cap badge, and South Lancashire (Prince of Wales) Regiment officer’s cap badge, generally very fine and better (lot) £300-£400

Provenance: Spink, July 2006.

Sydney Wilfred Simmons was born in Westminster in 1877. A clerk, and later a fruit salesman, by occupation, he joined the 13th Middlesex (Queen’s Westminster) Volunteer Rifles on 4 November 1895 and served as a Lance-Corporal in South Africa during the Boer War with “F” Company of the Infantry Battalion, City Imperial Volunteers.

During the Great War, Simmons served as a Corporal in the 6th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, transferring to the 1st Battalion and the 7th Battalion successively before being commissioned Second Lieutenant in the South Lancashire Regiment on 25 September 1918.