Six: Lieutenant-Commander P. V. Natali, Royal Navy

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (A.B., H.M.S. Thetis); Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Persian Gulf 1909-1914 (193312 P.O., H.M.S. Hyacinth); 1914-15 Star (Gnr., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.N.); Naval Good Shooting Medal, E.VII.R. (193312 Lg. Sea., H.M.S. Barham, 1906, 4.7 In. Q.F.), the earlier awards with contact marks and edge bruising, otherwise generally very fine or better (6) £400-450

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals for Services at Sea from the Collection of the Late Oliver Stirling Lee.

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Ex Charles Lovell collection, Part II, Sotheby’s, 15-16 November 1978 (Lot 563).

Percy Victor Natali was born at Stoke Newington in January 1882 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in April 1897. He subsequently witnessed active service aboard H.M.S. Thetis off South Africa during the Boer War, and aboard the Hyacinth in the Persian Gulf operations of 1910-11. In the interim, as a member of the 4.7-inch gun crew of the Barham, he won the Naval Good Shooting Medal, a photograph of him and his victorious ‘11 rounds, 11 hits’ crew appearing in The Fleet in October 1906.

By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Natali was serving as a Gunner, R.N. aboard torpedo boat No. 80, and from January until September 1915 he was borne on the books of the Cormorant ‘for service in Torpedo Boats’. In the latter month, however, he transferred to the Zealandia, in which battleship he served in the Dardanelles until transferring to the battle cruiser Renown in August 1916. Natali’s final wartime appointment was as Gunnery Lieutenant aboard the monitor Abercrombie and, after a period of attachment to the Royal Australian Navy between 1919-22, he was placed on the Retired List. He was advanced to Lieutenant-Commander (Retired) in March 1926.