Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Acting Stoker Petty Officer G. F. Barnes, Royal Navy

China 1900, no clasp (Sto., H.M.S. Endymion); 1914-15 Star (277363 L. Sto., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (277363 Act. S.P.O., R.N.); Royal Fleet Reserve L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (277363 (Ch.B.4086) S.P.O., R.F.R.) good very fine (5) £260-300

George Francis Barnes was born in Clerkenwell, Middlesex on 28 November 1871. An Assistant Erector by occupation, he enlisted into the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class on 9 July 1894. He was promoted to Stoker in June 1895 when at Pembroke II; Acting Armourer’s Crew in November 1901 when on Endymion and Armourer’s Crew in September 1903 when on Wildfire. He was discharged ashore on 10 July 1906 and joined the Chatham Battalion R.F.R., re-enrolling in October 1910. With the start of the Great War he returned to the Royal Navy and served on the pre-dreadnought battleship Cornwallis from November 1914, seeing service in the Dardanelles campaign. Barnes himself attained the rating of Acting Stoker Petty Officer in April 1916. He was on the ship when she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-32, East of Malta on 9 January 1917. Barnes survived the ordeal but his health must have been broken as he was invalided on 21 March 1917 and granted a pension. With copied service paper.