A Selection of Medals from the Collection of the Late Noel Morris

A good 1915 operations Great War D.C.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant G. Powley, Royal Artillery, who ‘was wounded by a high explosive shell which burst within two yards of him, but continued his work’: he was killed in action in October 1918

Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.V.R. (26757 Gnr. G. Powley, 26/Hvy. Bty. R.G.A.); 1914 Star, with clasp (26757 Gnr., R.G.A.); British War and Victory Medals (26757 Sjt., R.A.), together with related Memorial Plaque (George Powley), good very fine (5) £700-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Selection of Medals from the Collection of the Late Noel Morris.

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D.C.M. London Gazette 30 June 1915:

‘For gallant conduct on 10 January 1915, when, being lookout man on the cinder heap, he was wounded by a high explosive shell which burst within two yards of him, but he continued his work.’

(Alfred) George Powley was born at Reedham in 1887, the scion of a well-known Norfolk family of boatmen whose members included “Ophir” Powley, an enthusiatic Methodist. Young George - for that was the name he chose to enlist under - lost his father in a river accident in 1907, an incident that undoubtedly influenced his decision to join the Royal Garrison Artillery at Great Yarmouth to help provide a living for his widowed mother.

Still a regular soldier by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was embarked for France that month as a member of 26th Heavy Battery, R.G.A., his D.C.M.-winning exploits taking place on the morning of 10 January 1915, when an 8-inch howitzer shell exploded within two or three feet of him while he manned a position in a telephone observation post at Annequin (unit War Diary refers). Sadly, Powley was killed in action in Belgium on 14 October 1918 while serving as a Sergeant, his remains being interred in Aeroplane Cemetery, Ypres.

Sold with a copy of Noel Morris’ booklet, Reedham Remembers, A Tribute to Villagers Who Gave Their Lives in Two World Wars, in which Powley receives due recognition; together with two original photographs, comprising a family group taken when the recipient was a child and a portrait photograph of him in uniform; and a copy photograph of a period image of the Bricklayer’s Arms in Reedham.

The family group photograph is not included with the lot