Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Acting Corporal G. W. Newport, Royal Engineers, who was killed in action on the Somme on 27 September 1916

1914-15 Star (65825 2. Cpl G. W. Newport. R.E.); British War and Victory Medals (65825 A. Cpl. G. W. Newport. R.E.); Memorial Plaque (George William Newport), together with an R.E. cap badge, good very fine (4) £100-£140

This lot is to be sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Lieutenant-Colonel Edward De Santis.

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George William Newport was born in Alton, Hampshire and was a travelling carpenter at the time of his enlistment in the Royal Engineers in February 1915. Aged 37, he was married with seven children. Posted to 129th Field Company, R.E., he was advanced to Second Corporal in June 1915 and embarked for France in August of the same year.
Having emerged unscathed from the Battle Loos, he was advanced to Acting Corporal but he wounded in the Ypres salient on 4 March 1916. Admitted to No. 18 General Hospital at Camiers, he remained there until the end of May, when he was discharged and posted to a holding depot at Rouen. And it was there that he joined 126th Field Company, R.E. in July 1916.
But it proved to be a short-lived appointment, for he was killed in action in the Flers-Courcelette sector on 27 September 1916, his demise being recorded in the unit’s war diary: ‘Company employed making a track for infantry in file from Gap Trench to 500 yards of Bulls Road - Corporal Newport killed.’ The same source goes on to say that he was buried at Martinpuich, a town about midway between Courcelette and Flers. But his grave was lost in subsequent fighting, and he is today commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.