Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second War B.E.M. group of five awarded to Private E. V. Woodroffe, Worcestershire Regiment, and later Admiralty Senior Hydrographic Draughtsman
British Empire Medal, (Civil) G.VI.R., 1st issue (Ernest V. Woodroffe); 1914-15 Star (12225 L. Cpl. E. Woodroffe. Worc: R.); British War and Victory Medals (12225 Pte. E. Woodroffe. Worc. R.); Defence Medal, unnamed as issued, good very fine or better (5) £300-£400

B.E.M. (Civil) London Gazette 1 January 1946: ‘Ernest Victor Woodroffe, Senior Hydrographic Draughtsman, Admiralty.’

Ernest Victor Woodroffe was born on 24 May 1892, at Aston, Warwickshire. He commenced service in the Royal Navy as Boy 2 Class, H.M.S. Ganges I, on 26 April 1908, being appointed to H.M.S. Impregnable on 5 September 1908. He was clearly not suited to naval life and was discharged (invalided with melancholia) on 8 October the same year. On 31 August 1910, he enlisted into the Worcestershire Regiment and served in the 4th and 6th Battalions of that regiment in the Great War, at Gallipoli from 25 April 1915. He sustained a serious gun shot wound to his left hand and was discharged due to wounds on 1 July 1916, no longer physically fit for war service and received Silver War Badge No. 16709 (not with medals). He was appointed to be 2nd Class Draughtsman in the Royal Navy Hydrographic Department, on 16 March 1926, and served through to 1963. By the end of the Second World War he was graded as as Senior Hydrographic Draughtsman, and was awarded the British Empire Medal (Civil) in the New Year's Honour's List of 1946. In the 1939 Register he is recorded as a civil servant residing at Bath. He died on 11 May 1967.
Research correspondence with the medals indicate that he was known in the Hydrographic Office as "Splints" Woodroffe and was “quite a "character",a confirmed bachelor, quite a religious man and `careful' with money. He was not only in the Worcestershire Regiment but also said to have been in the Education Corps - perhaps after he was wounded and before joining the Hydrographic Department. However this has not been verified. He joined the Hydrographic Department when it was still at Cricklewood, and came to Taunton when the H.S.E. was established there just before WWII. He retired in 1963, still a Senior Draughtsman.



Sold with named card box of issue and Admiralty issue slip for the second and fourth medals, addressed to Jones at an address in Stonehouse, Plymouth; original photograph of the recipient receiving his B.E.M. from Vice Admiral Sir Peter White; original transmittal slip from Buckingham Palace; one good conduct stripe; one embroidered telegrapher’s sleeve badge; press cutting regarding the award of the B.E.M.; ribbon bar, the B.E.M. incorrectly with military ribbon; red fibre identity disk; original small identity card photograph of the recipient; and a photograph of King George VI inspecting a ship in the Home Fleet in September 1942; a copy photograph of the Home Guard platoon formed at the Hydrographic Supplies Establishment, Taunton; together with copied research and copy correspondence regarding his naval service.