Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Eight: Major Q. Douglas, Royal Engineers

1914-15 Star (2. Lieut. Q. Douglas. R.E.); British War and Victory Medals (Major Q. Douglas); 1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1953, unnamed as issued, mounted as worn, very fine and better (8) £120-£160

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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Quentin Douglas was born In Earls Court, London on 22 April 1892 and was educated at Marlborough College and the Chelsea College of Science and Technology. Having originally enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps – in which he served in the U.K. as a driver in 4th London Field Ambulance – he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in February 1915. Posted to 2/3rd Field Company, R.E., he was embarked for France in June 1915 and saw action in the Loos salient, the Vimy sector and on the Somme, latterly as a Temporary Captain. Having then served as an Acting Major and second-in-command of 419 (1st West Lancashire) Field Company, R.E., he was appointed a Light Railway Officer in III Corps in late 1917. Demobilised in January 1919, Douglas retained his commission in the Territorial Army until 1921.

Soon after the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, he was appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, but given the acting rank of Major, and he served on the Lines of Communication in the B.E.F. in France in March-June 1940. He also undertook a tour of duty as a Staff Officer in India and Burma in 1944 but was invalided home at the end of the year. His final posting was in the British Army on the Rhine in the period October 1945 to June 1946. A long-served member of the Conservative party, Douglas was awarded the Coronation Medal in 1953 when serving as mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington.