Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Victory Medal 1914-19 (L-44243 Dvr. A. F. Doel. R.A.) nearly very fine £50-£70

Arthur Frederick Doel, alias William Sinclair, was born - according to the register of Dorchester Prison - on 17 January 1897. He served with the Royal Field Artillery during the Great War and married Florence May Hamilton at the Parish Church, Southwark, on 6 January 1924. The young couple soon set up home at 38 Hatfield Street, Lambeth, but it wasn’t long before Doel was in trouble with the civil authorities for burglary. According to the Advertiser and Gazette of 4 November 1927:

‘Squeezing through a hole [to an office], Doel filled his boots with loot before calmly catching the train home and handing his wife 25s. of the proceeds.’

The Magistrates sentenced Doel to a month’s imprisonment with hard labour. Setting his sights on more typewriters and a life of crime, Doel adopted the name ‘William Sinclair’ and was caught again, this time breaking and entering the Clapham offices of Lucy Hulbert & Co. Ltd. Having ripped the back off the office safe at 5.30am on 20 May 1932, Doel was promptly apprehended by Police Constable Charles Francis whilst carrying a bulky package down Beddington Lane; it was at this moment that Doel produced a knife, but was challenged by a nearby railway worker with a pole. Clearly keen to escape, Doel then scuffled with the officer inflicting a number of wounds. The affair was finally ended when he produced a dummy revolver. Doel subsequently declared in court that he was in possession of a revolver in order to use it as a ‘jazz instrument’ in a band; an unimpressed Judge Holman Gregory subsequently labelled him a ‘dangerous thief’ and sentenced Doel to three years’ penal servitude.

It was later confirmed in court by Detective-Sergeant Barnes that ‘Sinclair’ was in fact Arthur Frederick Doel and that he had other convictions. Listed in Dorchester Prison in 1939, he returned home to London during the Blitz and was named in The West London Press & Chelsea News of 6 September 1940 when he stepped up to protect his sister in an Anderson shelter - not from the attentions of the Luftwaffe, rather the violent actions of his brother-in-law, Mr. Andrew Michael Dentice:

‘My husband came down and started arguing with me. The next I remember was my husband struggling with me and biting my left side. He was holding my wrists. He said he would show me who was boss in the house. I screamed for someone and my brother came along... My husband then started fighting with my brother and bit his arm. I have bruises on both wrists and teeth marks on my body.’

It appears that Doel continued in his life of crime until his death around 1962.