Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant A. H. Leeves, Royal Engineers
British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. A. H. Leeves.) extremely fine

Pair: Lieutenant Q. H. Whiteford, Royal Engineers
British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. Q. H. Whiteford.) good very fine (4) £80-£100

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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Arthur Henry Leeves was born in Rouen, France in 1893 and studied electrical engineering at Manchester University. Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in July 1915, he was drafted to 1st Field Company, R.E., which unit he appears to have joined in Egypt in early 1916, following its deployment to Gallipoli. Having then been advanced to Lieutenant in June 1916, Leeves transferred to 42nd Division Signal Company and served in France from February 1917 until the Armistice, seeing action in the battles of Arras, Bapaume and Selle, in addition to the Canal du Nord. He was demobilised in July 1921 and died in Shrewsbury, Shropshire in January 1985.

Quentin Hamilton Whiteford was born in Bury, Lancashire on 21 May 1875 and served in the ranks of the Queenstown Rifle Volunteers and Intelligence Department in the Boer War, being awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal with ‘Cape Colony’ clasp and the King’s South Africa Medal with the dated clasps. His Medal Index Card reveals that he also commenced the Great War as a Captain in the Mounted Infantry in the German South-West Africa operations and that he later transferred to the Field Intelligence Department, services that gained him entitlement to the 1914-15 Star. He then appears to have made his way to the U.K., where he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in August 1916 and advanced to Lieutenant in July 1917. He died in Southern Rhodesia in May 1943.