A Collection of medals awarded to those having the surname 'Lyon'

Three: Lieutenant Walter Scott Stuart Lyon, Royal Scots, a ‘War Poet’, killed in action, 8 May 1915

1914-15 Star (Lieut., R. Scots); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.) nearly extremely fine (3) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of medals awarded to those having the surname 'Lyon'.

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Walter Scott Stuart Lyon was born on 1 October 1886, at North Berwick. He was the son of Walter F. K. Lyon. In 1905 he went up to Oxford from Haileybury, and read Classics. He came down in 1909 to begin his professional training in Edinburgh, where he graduated in Law and in 1912 he was admitted an Advocate. He was then for some years Sub-Warden of the Edinburgh University Settlement.

He was gazetted a 2nd Lieutenant on 14 December 1909, and posted to the 9th Battalion Royal Scots, being promoted to Lieutenant on 17 December 1912. When war broke out he was appointed Staff-Captain to the Lothian Brigade. He rejoined his battalion in France in March 1915.

Major John Ewing, writing about the 2nd Battle of Ypres in his history of the Royal Scots , described the following incident on 23 April 1915: ‘”C” Company had come to a halt behind a hedge which was so thickly girt with barbed wire that men could not break through without great labour. Noticing this, Lieutenant Lyon very cooly stood up and, taking out his wire-cutters, began to make gaps. Machine-guns played on him, but without any sign of haste he proceeded with his task, never stopping until he had rendered the hedge penetrable’.

Later in his book, Ewing wrote: ‘On 8th May the storm broke out anew ... South of the Menin Road the shelling was not so continuous or relentless as it was farther North, but it caused several casualties among the 9th Royal Scots. Lieutenant Lyon, who had distinguished himself by his cool daring on 23rd April, was among the victims’.

Lieutenant Walter Scott Stuart Lyon was killed in action on 8 May 1915, aged 28 years. Having no known grave, his name is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. He was said to be the first member of the Scottish Bar to fall in action in the Great War and perhaps the first Advocate to fall in action since the battle of Flodden. Lieutenant Lyon was one of the ‘War Poets’. After his death, his poems were published in a volume called Easter at Ypres.

With copied research and a copy of the article, ‘Some Great War Lyon Toffs and Toughs’, by Dan Lyon, which appeared in the O.M.R.S. Journal of June 2009.