Medals & Coins, Arms & Armour - 27th November 2024
Lot 49
The Great War Pals Battalion D.S.O. group of five to Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Ernest Wilford, 30th
Estimate £2,000 - £3,000 | Hammer £2268
Inc. Buyers Premium
Description
The Great War Pals Battalion D.S.O. group of five to Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Ernest Wilford, 30th Lancers (Indian Army) and 13th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment (Barnsley Pals): Distinguished Service Order, George V; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, military division, officer's breast badge (O.B.E.), first type, London 1919; 1914 Star with copy clasp (MAJOR E. E. WILFORD 30TH LANCERS); British War Medal 1914-20 (LT. COL. E. E. WILFORD.); Victory Medal with MID emblem (MAJ. E. E. WILFORD.); display mounted, good very fine. [5]
(36mm Diameter of round medals)
Noonans, Lot 811, 01/12/2010
D.S.O. London Gazette 01/01/1917
O.B.E. London Gazette 03/06/1919
M.I.D. London Gazette 04/01/1917
Edmund Ernest Wilford was born in London in 1876, and educated at Clifton College. He entered the armed forces as 2nd Lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1896, before transferring to the Indian Army in 1898. Following various appointments in pre-war India he entered France in 1914 as Major & Squadron Commander, 30th Lancers (Gordon's Horse), Indian Expeditionary Force. In November 1915 he was given command of the newly trained 13th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment (1st Barnsley Pals), taking over from Colonel Joseph Hewitt, who had raised the force.
He commanded the 13th in Egypt, whence they sailed on the 29th of December 1915 in the S.S. Adania to join the Suez Canal defences. The battalion returned to France, landing in Marseilles on the 17th March 1916, where their duties included mining operations.
On the 1st of July 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme - the 13th York and Lancashire suffered notoriously high casualties, in common with other of the 'Pals' regiments. Wilford was highly regarded both by his men and by his superiors, and his D.S.O., awarded in January 1917, may be presumed to have been in recognition of his services on the Somme.
On the 14th of May 1917 he was hospitalised by a wound caused by a fragment from a long-range shell that hit the Battalion H.Q., situated in a railway cutting near Gaverelle Windmill.