Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War gold wrist watch presented to Lance-Corporal G. Nesbitt, M.M., the reverse inscribed ‘Presented to Lanc. Corp. G. Nesbitt by the Officials & Workmen of Bowden Close Colliery on His Winning the M.M. in France Oct. 2nd 1917’, with leather strap, some dents to case and the mechanism appears to be in need of some repair, otherwise good condition £80-120

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection.

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George Robert Nesbitt was born in 1876 and enlisted in the 6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry in July 1915. Having joined his unit out in France in April 1916, he was advanced to Lance-Corporal in April 1917 and was awarded the M.M. later that year - the Battalion’s war diary reveals that he was presented with the appropriate riband by his Corps Commander, Lieutenant-General Haldane, at a special parade and march past held on 9 October, while the award was formally announced in the London Gazette on 12 December. He had, meanwhile, gained advancement to Corporal, but in July 1918 he was wounded in a mustard-gas attack. Nesbitt was finally demobilised in February 1919, his medical category then being described as ‘A3’.