Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Riband bar attributed to Lieutenant-Colonel William John Woodcroft Sorby, Gurkha Rifles
Riband bar, pin-backed, bearing the ribbons: 1914-15 Star; War Medal 1914-20; Victory Medal 1914-18; Coronation 1911; ‘Blue ribbon’; 1939-45 Star; ‘Khaki ribbon’, with M.I.D. oak leaf, good condition (lot) £30-£40

Sold with original M.I.D. certificate to Major (T/Lieut-Colonel) W. J. W. Sorby, V.D., Corps of Indian Engineers, London Gazette 5 August 1943 - in envelope; together with 26 related original photographs, some identified. With newspaper clipping with his obituary, 7 October 1960.

William John Woodcroft Sorby joined the 1st Battalion, 1st Gurkha Rifles in France on 28 September 1915 and afterwards accompanied the Battalion to Mesopotamia when the Indian Corps was withdrawn from France towards the end of 1915. He was subsequently severely wounded at the Battle of Bait Aissa on 17 April 1916. Reverting to the Indian Army Reserve of Officers after the Great War, he is listed as serving with the Auxiliary Forces of India in the 1920s, initially with the Oudh and Pokilkhand Railway Battalion and afterwards the North Western Railway Battalion Regiment. Appointed a war substantive Major in December 1941, he witnessed active service in Burma and was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 5 August 1943, refers), prior to being appointed an Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel on relinquishing his commission in November 1946.