Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Driver S. Cole, Royal Field Artillery

1914 Star, with clasp (39804 Dvr: S. Cole. R.F.A.); British War and Victory Medals (39804. Dvr. S. Cole. R.A.) mounted as worn, very fine (3) £60-£80

Sidney Cole was born in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, in 1885, and attested for the Royal Artillery on 24 October 1905. Sent to Swindon, his Army Service Record records a particularly inauspicious start with the award of 21 days of hard labour for ‘making a fake answer to a question set out in the attestation papers’. This was followed by 14 days confined to barracks at Ewshott for neglect of orders, improper dress on the public road and making a false statement. Further entries followed, including insolence, improper language, disorderly conduct in the town of Fleet, and breaking windows - all in his first two years of service.

Posted to France from 19 August 1914, Cole is recorded in December 1914 as having suffered a ‘slight’ wound and was admitted to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He subsequently suffered from repeated health complaints, noticeably a hernia, before transferring to the 1st Battalion, London Regiment at Woolwich on 2 August 1918. Cole was later discharged at termination of engagement on 6 March 1919.