Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant A. L. Newman, 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers, who commanded B Company in 1918, and was twice wounded in action during the Great War

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. A. L. Newman) very fine (2) £60-£80

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to the South Wales Borderers.

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Arthur Leslie Newman was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the South Wales Borderers in October 1916. He served during the Great War with the 2nd Battalion in the French theatre of war from 11 April 1917. Newman advanced to Lieutenant in April 1918 and commanded B Company during the attack on Kruiseick. He was wounded during the latter action, 29 September 1918, and according to a newspaper parer article marking his 100th birthday this was his second wound:

‘ Arthur ‘Pat’ Newman risked life and limb for King and country in 1917, when he was hit in the abdomen and 1918, in the knee... Educated at Oundle in Northamptonshire he joined the officers’ training corps and was attached to South Wales Borderers regiment.

Still a teenager he went to France to fight the Germans in WW1, spending 19 days at the front before being hit in the abdomen. A year later in 1918 he returned to the trenches and went over the top again, but he was hit behind the knee and hospitalised.

“I was very lucky to escape,” Pat confesses.

After retirement from the army he joined Bolney Royal British Legion, a group with which he has maintained close ties. In his civilian life he trained in customs, a profession which was his ticket to travel to China, where he met his wife, Helen (Nell). Her father was a governor of the province, with jurisdiction to marry them, a ceremony which he performed in Manchuria in 1923.

But the couple were evacuated from China in WW2, returning to Britain, where they settled at a farm in the Sussex countryside.’ (West Sussex County Times, 6 March 1998 refers)