Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain H. E. Stephens, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

1914-15 Star (Capt. H. E. Stephens. Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. H. E. Stephens.) good very fine (3) £80-£100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

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Harold Edric Stephens was born at Cape Town, South Africa in 1886. He seems to have made his home in the U.K. and in the 1911 Census he is recorded as a solicitor’s articled clerk aged 24, and was head of the household at Apartment D2, Albany, Piccadilly. He was later a barrister in Marylebone, London. On a trip to the U.K. in 1896 both his parents and his sister died on the ill fated S.S. Drummond Castle, which sank off the coast of France. He was commissioned Temporary Second Lieutenant in the 6th (Service) Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on 4 November 1914, and was promoted Temporary Captain on 5 February 1915. He served during the Great War on the Western Front from July 1915, and relinquished his commission on account of ill-health caused by wounds on 26 July 1919, retaining the rank of Capt. In 1928, at the age of 42, he was appointed to be Managing Director of the family business of Henry C. Stephens Ltd., trading as Stephens Inks, and was admitted a Freeman of the City of London. He died in 1950 and his home Snoddington Manor, Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire.