Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Nine: Hon. Colonel W. J. W. Sorby, Corps of Royal Indian Engineers, late 1st Gurkha Rifles

1914-15 Star (Lieut. W. J. W. Sorby, 1-1 K.G.O. Gk. Rfls.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. W. J. Sorby); 1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf, these four privately engraved, ‘Lt. Col. W. J. W. Sorby’; Delhi Durbar 1911 (Cpl. W. J. W. Sorby, 1st P.V.R.), privately re-engraved naming; Indian Volunteer Forces Decoration, G.V.R. (Capt. W. J. W. Sorby, 1 Bn. N.W. Ry. R. A.F.I.), mounted as worn, together with the recipient’s Great War silver identity disc, very fine and better (10) £400-500

William John Woodcroft Sorby joined the 1st Battalion, 1st Gurkha Rifles in France on 28 September 1915 and afterwards accompanied the Battalion to Mesopotamia when the Indian Corps was withdrawn from France towards the end of 1915. He was subsequently severely wounded at the Battle of Bait Aissa on 17 April 1916. Reverting to the Indian Army Reserve of Officers after the Great War, he is listed as serving with the Auxiliary Forces of India in the 1920s, initially with the Oudh and Pokilkhand Railway Battalion and afterwards the North Western Railway Battalion Regiment. Appointed a war substantive Major in December 1941, he witnessed active service in Burma and was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 5 August 1943, refers), prior to being appointed an Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel on relinquishing his commission in November 1946.

The Delhi Durbar is a contemporary copy and he does not appear on the roll for that unit