Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well documented family pair of Memorial Plaques to Private H. I. Leonard, Gloucestershire Regiment, who was killed in action on the Western Front on 1 July 1917, and to Private E. J. Leonard, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who died of pneumonia on 16 January 1919

Memorial Plaque (2) (Horace Ivor Leonard; Evan John Leonard) good very fine (2) £200-£240

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, July 2011.

Horace Ivor Leonard, the son of Evan and Ann Leonard of Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, and the brother of Jack Leonard, attested for the Gloucestershire Regiment, and served with the 12th/14th Battalion during the Great War on the Western Front. He was killed in action on 1 July 1917, and is buried in Villers-Guislain Communal Cemetery, France.

Evan John ‘Jack’ Leonard, the son of Evan and Ann Leonard of Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, and the brother of Horace Leonard, attested for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and served with the 2nd/6th Battalion during the Great War on the Western Front. He died of pneumonia on 16 January 1919, and is buried in Enschede Eastern General Cemetery, Holland.

Sold with an interesting archive of letters written by the two brothers to their sister Gwendoline, comprising eight letters written by Horace (three from Bristol in 1915, and five from the Western Front, dated 14 September 1916; 19 January 1917; 9 April 1917; 9 May 1917; and 16 June 1917); and eight letters written by Jack (all from the Western Front, dated 14 November 1916; 6 February 1917; 23 April 1917; 7 June 1917; 21 August 1917; 27 September 1917; 21 December 1917; and 14 January 1918); a letter from Gwendoline to Jack in France, dated May 1916; and one from Horace to Jack, whilst both were in France, dated May 1917; most of the letters being 3-4pp, including accounts of both brothers’ experiences of active service; together with other ephemera.