Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A good Great War D.S.O. group of five awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel C. V. Bellamy, Royal Engineers, late Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers and Southern Nigeria Volunteers, who served at A.N.Z.A.C. Headquarters, Gallipoli in October 1915, and was wounded on the Western Front in March 1918

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top riband bar; 1914-15 Star (Major C. V. Bellamy. R.E.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lt. Col. C. V. Bellamy.); Colonial Auxiliary Forces Decoration, G.V.R., silver and silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1911, the reverse engraved, ‘Major C. V. Bellamy, Southern Nigeria Volunteers, 1913’, with integral top riband bar, mounted court-style as worn, extremely fine (5) £1,600-£2,000

Dix Noonan Webb, June 2008.

D.S.O. London Gazette 4 June 1917.

M.I.D. London Gazette 4 January and 18 May 1917.

Colonial Auxiliary Forces Decoration Southern Nigeria Government Gazette 26 March 1913.

Charles Vincent Bellamy was born in April 1867 and was educated at Plymouth College. Commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Prince of Wales’s Volunteer Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment in 1886, he subsequently served in the Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers 1889-95 and in the Southern Nigeria Volunteers 1907-13, and having been advanced Major was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Decoration in March 1913.

Returning to the U.K., Bellamy was appointed a Major in the Royal Engineers (Territorial Force Reserve) in November 1914, and embarked for the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on 14 October 1915. He served at A.N.Z.A.C. Headquarters, Gallipoli until invalided to Egypt that November. Returning to duty in March 1916, with an appointment at H.Q., 2nd A.N.Z.A.C. at Ismailia, he was embarked with that corps for France in June 1916 and served there until being invalided to the U.K. in June of the following year. For his services during the Great War he was twice Mentioned in Despatches and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

Bellamy returned to France with an appointment at H.Q., XXII Corps in March 1918, and was ‘wounded at duty’ on 20 March. He subsequently joined XV Corps and served in the advance of August to November 1918, and thereafter in Flanders and in the Army of the Rhine, once more being invalided home in 1919. In a letter to the War Office written shortly thereafter, he summarised his ailments - and their cause - as follows:
‘The nervous affection of the throat I attribute to shock. The chest trouble and asthma I believe to be due to gas and to exposure on active service, and the loss of my hearing is the result of shellfire.’

Bellamy was duly discharged in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was awarded a Silver War Badge.

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