Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain J. C. S. Williams, Army Service Corps, who inherited a small fortune on his 21st birthday and lost the entirety in just over 7 years through high living, poor investments, and opportunist money-lenders

1914-15 Star (Lieut. J. C. S. Williams. A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. J. C. S. Williams.) very fine and better (3) £160-£200

Joseph Coryton Stanley Williams was born at Kirkby Mallory on 10 March 1884, the son of Captain George S. Williams of the 10th Hussars. Educated at Harrow and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1 October 1902, Williams spent his teenage years at Pendley Manor in Hertfordshire under the stewardship of his uncle, Joseph Grout Williams, having lost both of his parents as a young boy. Such was the family’s wealth at this time - borne of the silk industry - that Kelly’s Directory records Joseph Grout Williams as one of the largest landowners in the County, second only to Lord Rothschild of the banking dynasty.

A Cautionary Tale
Inheriting £13,000 ‘under settlements made by his father’ (a small fortune at the time), Williams determined to travel overseas to Uruguay where he invested over half in a cattle ranch known as Estancia Dolores Paysanda. The venture proved an unmitigated disaster, and within 6 years Williams was ordered to return to London in order to come before Mr. W. Boyle, Official Receiver in the Court of Bankruptcy. The story soon caught the attention of The Daily Telegraph on 8 September 1911:

‘He [Williams] remained there eighteen months, when, owing to the fall in prices, the partners sold the cattle, and the debtor received £3,000 out of the proceeds. A sum of £1,000 is still owing to him in respect of the business. On return, he invested £2,000 in a motor company, of which he became managing director, but retired a year ago. During the last four years he lost £2,000 on the Stock Exchange, and he attributes his present position to these losses and extravagance in living.’

Under the headline ‘Fortune Gone’, The Daily Telegraph confirmed all of the young man’s capital had been exhausted by October 1911, and furthermore, he had got into the hands of a professional moneylender. The reduction in circumstances - furthered by gambling - resulted in Williams losing his wife. The outbreak of the Great War witnessed service with the 1st (London) Divisional Artillery Train and promotion to Captain, but his circumstances failed to financially recover and he died at Lancing in the home of a fellow officer as a result of a heart attack in 1930; perhaps remarkably, given all that he had been through, the recipient’s obituary in the Worthing Herald stated a good disposition and that he was ‘extremely popular’.