Medals from the Rob Campbell Collection relating to Clevedon, Somerset

Four: Staff Sergeant W. F. Sercombe, Gloucestershire Regiment, later Army Service Corps

1914-15 Star (3222 Cpl. W. F. Sercombe. Glouc. R.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (3222 S. Sjt. W. F. Sercombe. Glouc. R.); Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R., 1st issue (S4-24831 S. Sjt: W. F. Sercombe. H.Q. 48/Div: A.S.C.) mounted for display, test marks to edge of last, generally very fine (4) £200-£300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Rob Campbell Collection relating to Clevedon, Somerset.

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M.S.M. London Gazette 3 June 1918:

‘In recognition of valuable services rendered with the Forces in Italy.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 4 January 1917.

William Frederick Sercombe was a native of Clevedon, and prior to the Great War was employed on the literary staff of the Clevedon Mercury. His father W. G. Sercombe was the Editor of the paper. The Mercury wrote the following article on Sercombe in August 2015:

‘Sercombe... joined the Army voluntarily in September 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War the previous month. He enlisted in the 6th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment, in which he soon rose to the rank of corporal.

He was posted to France at Easter 1915 and it was while he was in that country that he was promoted from corporal to staff sergeant in the Army Service Corps... In time, he was ordered to the Italian front... It was noted in the Clevedon Mercury and Courier (as it was called at the time) that:

“His short but vivid pen pictures of France and Belgium, and later of Italian mountain scenery which appeared in our columns, have been read with considerable interest by the majority of townspeople.”

This soldier/journalist was congratulated by the newspaper at the time. It seems he had become Clevedon’s own war correspondent because the newspaper followed his correspondence with interest and often printed extracts of his letters home to his parents.

William Frederick Sercombe had joined Clevedon Mercury and Courier as a junior reported when he left school. But the First World War intervened, as it did for many with a career in mind.... The following is just an extract of his letter, published in the newspaper on July 15, 1916:

‘This is the first opportunity I have had at replying to your letter. We arrived back last night after having a few days up in the zone which witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the recent operation.

The attack was preceded by a bombardment extending over several days such as there has never been on this front before, and it reached a climax in the morning when those of us who were detailed to go up to an advanced post moved forward to our positions.”

He writes that it was “all very interesting and exciting and I would not have missed it for anything, but there is another side of the picture - a side one does not like to dwell upon.”

The 6th Gloucestershire Regiment, 48th South Midland Division, were in VIIIth Corps reserve in the Hebuterne sector and did not attack the enemy until the Battle of Bazentine Ridge, which opened on July 14, 1916. When his father died, William Sercombe took over as editor of the paper in the early 1930s until 1937. After leaving the Mercury, Mr Sercombe joined the Bristol Aeroplane Company. He was there for a number of years and then joined a firm of solicitors in Hill Road.

William Frederick Sercombe, an honoured Clevedon man, died aged 75 in 1966 at his home in Leagrove Road.’

Sold with extensive copied research, including transcriptions of the recipient’s correspondence from the front printed in the Clevedon Mercury and Courier during the Great War.