Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Medal of the Order of the British Empire group of seven awarded to acting Warrant Officer Class II A. J. Nutting, 16th (County of London) Battalion (Queen’s Westminster Rifles), London Regiment, who was thrice honoured in the Great War

Medal of the Order of the British Empire (Military), unnamed as issued; 1914 Star (161 Sjt. A. J. Nutting, 1/16 Lond. R.); British War and Victory Medals (161 A.W.O. Cl. 2 A. J. Nutting, 16-Lond. R.); Army Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R., 1st issue (161 Sjt. A. J. Nutting, 1/16 Lond. R.); Territorial Force Efficiency Medal, G.V.R., named to another recipient ‘562118 Spr.-A.S. Sjt. E. Paine, R.E.’; Royal Victorian Medal, G.V.R., silver, unnamed as issued, mounted court-style with new ribands but on original wearing bar, together with four related Queen’s Westminster Rifles’ prize medals 1909-12, two in gold and two in bronze, all named to the recipient, dated and in fitted cases of issue; and a silver prize award from the Metropolitan Territorial School of Arms Association, 1912, this also in fitted case, good very fine and better (12) £800-£1,000

John Tamplin Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2009.

Medal of the Order of the British Empire London Gazette 23 January 1920:
‘In recognition of valuable services rendered in connection with military operations in France and Flanders.

M.S.M. London Gazette 18 October 1916:
‘In recognition of valuable services rendered during the present War.’

Alfred James Nutting was from Merstham, Surrey, and by profession a director of an old family business, the seed merchants Nutting and Sons Ltd. But he was also a keen Volunteer and Territorial, originally having joined the 13th (Queen’s) Middlesex Rifle Volunteers at Buckingham Gate in London several years before the Great War. Awarded the Territorial Force Efficiency Medal shortly before the outbreak of hostilities (AO 216 of July 1914 refers), he went out to France as a Sergeant with the 16th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles) in November of that year, where, no doubt, he witnessed events of the famous Christmas Truce - gifts were exchanged in No Man’s Land and one of the German officers encountered by the Battalion was originally from Catford.

Remaining actively employed on the Western Front, Nutting was to be decorated on three occasions, namely with the Army Meritorious Service Medal; the Royal Victorian Medal in silver, on the occasion of George V’s visit to the Army in the Field in July 1917; and the Medal of the Order of the British Empire. Returning to his family firm after the War, of which he rose to be Chairman of the Board, Nutting was appointed as the Horticultural Trade Association’s representative to the Ministry of Agriculture on the renewal of hostilities, but following the complete destruction of his business premises in Southwark Street, London in 1942, his health declined. He died in Redhill, Surrey in July 1946.