Three: Captain H. P. Waterhouse, Royal Engineers, who was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the Order of St. Anne for operations in Archangel in 1919

British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.); Russia, Empire, Order of St. Anne, Military Division, Third Class breast badge with swords, by Keibel, St. Petersburg, gold (56 zolotniki) and enamel, maker’s mark and court stamp to reverse, gold mark and 1865-96 date stamp to suspension ring, the last lacking loop suspension, good very fine and better (3) £1,000-£1,400

Hubert Preston Waterhouse was born in January 1885 and was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Wolverhampton. Enlisting in the Worcestershire Regiment (T.F.) in September 1914, he transferred to the London Electrical Engineers in January 1915 and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the latter unit in September 1916. Waterhouse was appointed an Acting Captain in June 1918 and went on to witness active service in North Russia in the following year, where, in addition to being mentioned in despatches for operations in Archangel (London Gazette 5 June 1919), he was awarded the Russian Order of St. Anne, 3rd Class, with swords, ‘for gallant conduct in action against the enemies of Russia’ (London Gazette 16 July 1921). He relinquished his commission in September 1921 but was allowed to retain the rank of Captain.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation and photographs, the former including the recipient’s M.I.D. certificate (Major-General W. E. Ironside’s despatch dated 24 March 1919), a G.H.Q., Allied Forces of North Russia, communication forwarding the ‘Order and Ribbon of the Russian Order which the Government of the Northern Region has awarded you for gallant conduct in action against the enemies of Russia’, dated 18 June 1919, and his notebook from Home Guard days in the 1939-45 War; and the photographic archive, in addition to a quantity of unbound images - several of them portraits in uniform - a rare album of scenes from his days in North Russia (approximately 25 images), and including inserted Russian banknotes and an “Elope” Dinner menu, Archangel, 18 June 1919, with the signatures of a number of his fellow officers.