A Collection of Medals to The Royal Engineers

A good Great War M.C. group of eleven awarded to Major-General G. G. Waterhouse, C.B., M.C., Royal Engineers

Military Cross, G.V.R.; 1914-15 Star (Capt., R.E.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Major); 1939-45 Star; Defence and War Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; French Legion of Honour, Chevalier’s breast badge, silver and enamel; Serbian Order of the White Eagle, 4th class breast badge, silver and enamel; Iraqi Order of El Rafidain, 3rd class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, in its Bertrand, Paris case of issue, mounted as worn, the French piece badly chipped and with bent arm points, the Serbian piece less so, otherwise nearly very fine and better (11) £800-1000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to The Royal Engineers.

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M.C. London Gazette 1 January 1917.

George Guy Waterhouse was born in Kersal, Manchester in June 1886 and was educated at Cheltenham College and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where he won the King’s Medal and was awarded the Sword of Honour. He also played in the R.M.A’s 1st Rugby XV. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers in December 1905, he gained advancement to Lieutenant in March 1908 and was employed on survey duty in Southern Nigeria between 1910-13 .

Some 50 years later Waterhouse wrote an entertaining account of his time in Africa, including a successful cure for the early symptoms of smallpox - care of a few bottles of champagne; a brace of near-lost battles with “driver ants” - these latter pests actually accounted for two local railwaymen who had fallen asleep by the roadside after an indulgent Christmas dinner at the N.C.O’s Mess of the West African Field Force, the morning revealing nothing but their skeletons; and his elevation to god-like status with a local tribe, an unexpected promotion that undoubtedly saved him from a grisly end. All in all it had been a memorable tour of duty, Waterhouse closing his memoir - a typescript copy of which accompanies the Lot - in the following terms:

‘On New Year’s Day 1913, Sir Frederick Lugard held a Durbar attended by all the northern Emirs and Sultans; Kano, Sokoto, Katsena, Zaria, Bornu and others. There were some 50,000 men on the ground, of whom 15,000 were mounted. British power was represented by a few companies of Mounted Infantry, one of Infantry and a Pack Battery of the W.A.F.F., all without a round of live ammunition. A good instance of the “oppressive” nature of our colonial rule of which we nowadays hear so much from ignorant and evil mouths at home and abroad.’

During the Great War Waterhouse served as a Captain in France and Flanders from September to November 1915, and in Salonika in command of 127th Field Company, R.E. from November 1915 to October 1917, during the course of which he was wounded, awarded the M.C. and twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 6 December 1916 and 28 November 1917), in addition to being given the Brevet of Major. He was also awarded the French Legion of Honour and Serbian Order of the White Eagle.

Passing Staff College at Camberley after the War, Waterhouse served as an Instructor of English at the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre in Paris between 1922-23 - he would also attend the Royal Naval Staff College at Greenwich in1928. The early 1930s saw him serving as a Military Attaché in Paris but in 1934 he commenced what transpired to be a long-served tour of duty in Iraq.

Serving with the British Military Mission there until 1937, he was advanced to Major-General in August 1938 and became Head of the British Advisory Military Mission to the Iraq Army, which appointment he held until 1941, a period of service that witnessed the award of a C.B. and 3rd Class Order of El Rafidain. Returning to the U.K. as a District Commander for most of the remainder of the War, he was placed on the Retired List in January 1945, but quickly found employment as Deputy Commissioner of the British Red Cross and St. John War Organisation at H.Q., South-East Asia Command in the same year.

The General finally retired to Kensington, London and died on 22 August 1975.