Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Private G. Smith, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and Royal Flying Corps, who was employed by the Great Western Railway

1914-15 Star (1514 Pte. G. Smith. Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (20086 Pte. G. Smith. Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); Defence Medal, contact marks and polished, nearly very fine (4) £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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George Smith was born at Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, in January 1891 and attested for the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on 10 February 1912, giving his profession as railway porter. He served with 1st/4th Battalion during the Great War on the Western Front from 29 March 1915 and received a slight shrapnel wound to the face and chin on 16 March 1916. He is noted on a casualty form as being a Bugler, when admitted to 31st Ambulance Train, in August 1917, for ‘I.C.T.’ (Inflammation of Connective Tissue). He later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force, as an aero fitter, being renumbered 406937, transferring in as A.M. 2, on 5 January 1918, and was promoted to A.M. 1, on 30 July 1918. He was transferred to the R.A.F. Reserve on 11 March 1919.

Sold together with cast white metal oval Great Western Railway Company badge with blackened background with two lugs; hallmarked silver Great Western Railway Fifteen Years First Aid Efficiency fob medal (5032 George Smith 1945); National Union of Railwaymen 30 Years Membership lapel badge in silver and enamels; small white metal pendant with photograph, inscribed in ink to reverse ‘G. Smith’; three railway staff buttons, one large ‘GWR’ maker marked ‘Compton Sons & Webb, London’, and two smaller buttons with locomotive motif.