Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War Albert Medal group of three awarded to Corporal J. Webb, Royal Army Medical Corps

Albert Medal, 2nd Class, for Gallantry in Saving Life on Land (Presented by His Majesty to Corporal James Webb, Royal Army Medical Corps, for gallantry in Saving Life at Cambrin in France on the 2nd January 1916); 1914 Star (2511 Pte., R.A.M.C.); British War Medal 1914-20 (2511 Cpl., R.A.M.C.); together with an unnamed Victory Medal 1914-19, nearly extremely fine (4) £4000-5000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Medical Services formed by Colonel D.G.B. Riddick.

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A.M. London Gazette 19 May 1916. ‘Corporal James Webb, Royal Army Medical Corps (&) Driver Richard Foley, Royal Field Artillery’ ‘On 2nd January, 1916, during a heavy bombardment, Webb and Foley, acting entirely on their own initiative, left a place where they were safe and ran out to bring two wounded French civilians into a dug-out. They got both men into a cellar. During this operation heavy shells were falling all around them, and a motor-cyclist who was assisting to bring in the second man, was killed’.

James Webb was born on 17 November 1885. He originally enlisted into the Royal Scots when he was aged 16 years and served in South Africa and India. At the time of his marriage in 1911 he was employed as a Painter by the London and North Western Railway at Northampton. By 1914 he was an Under-Shunter in the Traffic Department at Northampton. With the onset of war he rejoined the Army, serving in the R.A.M.C., he was awarded the Albert Medal for saving the lives of French civilians. Post-war he returned to the railways, retiring as a Foreman Shunter in 1950. He died in Northampton on 19 March 1961, aged 75 years.

Sold with copied research.