Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Great War ‘Western Front’ M.C. group of three awarded to Reverend A. K. Swallow, Temporary Chaplain to the Forces, Army Chaplains Department, attached 2nd South Wales Borderers

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (Rev. A. K. Swallow) mounted as worn, good very fine (3) £1,000-£1,400

M.C. London Gazette 16 September 1918:
‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He superintended the clearing of wounded under heavy fire from snipers and machine-guns. When both stretcher-bearers carrying a wounded man became casualties, he remained with the man under heavy fire till fresh bearers arrived and carried him away.’

The Reverend Arthur ‘Kenelm’ Swallow was born in 1890, son of a cleric who was once headmaster of St Kenelm’s Preparatory School in Durham. He was a deacon in Leicester before joining the 2nd Battalion of the South Wales Borderers as a chaplain in the First World War. He proceeded to France on 11 November 1916, and was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in 1918. After the war he went to Coventry as an assistant priest at the Cathedral and to teach at the Grammar School. He shortly afterwards founded Coventry Preparatory School where he continued teaching well into his 80s. He died in January 1979 at the age of 88.

Sold with copied gazette entry, Medal Index Card and a two-page article from The Coventry Evening Telegraph of 21 October 2000, detailing his distinguished academic career.