Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Stoker 1st Class C. T. Mills, Royal Navy, afterwards a Leading Boatman in H.M. Coast Guard

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Sto., H.M.S. Powerful); 1914-15 Star (173559 L. Sto., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (173559 Sto. 1, R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (173559 Boatn., H.M. Coast Guard), the first with contact marks and severe edge bruising at 9 o’clock, nearly very fine, the remainder very fine or better (5) £180-220

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barrett J. Carr Collection of Boer War Medals.

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Collection

415 no-clasp Queen’s South Africa Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Powerful.

Charles Thomas Mills was born in London in September 1873 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in May 1893. He subsequently served in H.M.S. Powerful as a Stoker from June 1897 to June 1900, latterly off South Africa, but transferred to the Coast Guard as a Boatman in January 1906, with whom he served in the Western District and was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in June 1908.

Recalled to regular duty on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he joined the Challenger, in which cruiser he served until January 1918, a period that witnessed her capture of the German steamer Ulla Boog in the Bristol Channel in September 1914, extensive service off West Africa for the Cameroons campaign, and off East Africa from 1915 as part of the “round-up” operations for the Konigsberg and beyond. Having then returned to the U.K. for an appointment in Vivid II, Mills joined the torpedo boat destroyer 041, in which ship he served from April 1918 to February 1919. He transferred back to the Coast Guard as a Leading Boatman in May 1919.