Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain E. F. Gilbert, Mercantile Marine

Transport 1899-1902, 1 clasp, S. Africa 1899-1902 (E. F. Gilbert.); British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals (Edward F. Gilbert) extremely fine (3) £800-£1,000

Edward Fowler Gilbert was born in the small hamlet of Little Carlton, Nottinghamshire, on 24 January 1871. Educated at Ropewalk Street boarding school and Grantham school, Gilbert joined the training ship Conway as Cadet on 1 September 1885. He passed out in July 1877 and was soon apprenticed to the ‘square rigger’ Red Gauntlet. Joining her in October 1877, Gilbert enjoyed four foreign-going voyages of ten months apiece, before passing his Certificate of Competency as 2nd Mate at Hull on 7 September 1891. Transferred to another square rigger, the British Army, he passed his 1st Mate Certificate of Competency and joined the iron barque Roderick Dhu on 5 February 1894.

Joining the Castle Line steamship Roslin Castle as Third Officer in 1899, Gilbert was soon engaged on ferrying troops between Britain and South Africa during the Boer War. As H.M.T. 26, she was part of a convoy of six troopships and was the first to arrive at Durban carrying men of the West Yorkshire Regiment. Advanced 1st Officer aboard Lismore Castle in 1901, he served aboard a variety of merchant vessels in the years leading up to the First Word War, including Guelph, Gaika, Galway Castle, Norman and the Kilfauns Castle; the latter was later converted as an armed merchant cruiser.

Transferred to Sabine and Carlisle Castle, Gilbert operated on the United States and Cape runs. He was fortunate not to be aboard the Carlisle Castle when she was torpedoed off the Royal Sovereign lightship on 14 February 1918. He ended the war as Captain of the Chepstow Castle, and continued to serve aboard a wide variety of vessels throughout the 1920s. Retired in 1933, he returned home to ‘Conway’, Peter Avenue, Oxted, Surrey, in poignant reference to happy days as a young Cadet.