Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, unofficial rivets between second and third clasps (Capt. S. W. Dixon. Manch: R:) engraved naming, suspension claw sometime tightened, nearly very fine £200-£240

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Robert Barltrop Collection of Medals to the Manchester Regiment.

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O.B.E. (Military) London Gazette 12 December 1919.

Sidney Wentworth Dixon was bon on 6 March 1868 in Marylebone. He volunteered for service in 1888 and served for ten years in the ranks of the 20th Artists Rifle Volunteers rising to Sergeant. He was a keen sportsman and competed in the one-mile cycle race in the Royal Military Exhibition (R.M.E.) in 1890, he was also in the London Rowing Club VIII against Oxford University in 1895 and again in 1901. He was commissioned Captain in 3rd & 4th Battalions the Manchester Regiment from 20th Middlesex (Artist’s) Volunteer Rifle Corps on 2 March 1898. He served in the South African War with 5th Battalion, Manchester Regiment, being invalided home with dysentery and jaundice. He resigned his commission in March 1903, and took up a position with The Gramophone Company as assistant manager and Company Secretary.

Following the outbreak of the Great War, Dixon was commissioned Captain in the Army Service Corps from 31 August 1914, and was posted to the Horse Transport Depot, Deptford. He appears in a group photograph of the officers of the First Reserve Horse Transport (A.S.C.). During the War he suffered from failing health and contracted tuberculosis being discharged by a Medical Board in 1919, retaining the rank of Major. His service papers record that he landed in France in on 1 December 1914, but was invalided home by the 30 of the same month. He appears entitled to medals for his Great War service in France in 1914, but has not been traced in the medal rolls, so may never have applied for their issue, due perhaps to his premature death at the age of 54 on 10 April 1922. His service in the Great War was recognised by the award of the O.B.E.

Sold with the recipient’s miniature medal group consisting of O.B.E. (Military) 1st type, Queens South Africa medal with matching clasps, and 1914-15 trio; five prize medals, three from the 20th Artists Rifle Volunteers, School of Arms, one in un-hallmarked white metal (1888-9 Quarter Staff S. W. Dixon), two in bronze both named, with two additional prize medals, one in white metal and another bronze named (R.M.E. Sergt. S. W. Dixon, 1890) and the other (R.M.E. Dixon 1890); together with copied research including a copied photographic image of the recipient.