Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

British War Medal 1914-20 (2. Lieut. H. A. Boyd.) good very fine £60-£80

Harold Alexander Boyd was born in Ware, Hertfordshire, on 19 January 1895 and was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge., where he reading medicine. Joining the Special Reserve of Officers in 1913, he was mobilised on the outbreak of the Great War, and was posted to the 2nd Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He arrived in France with one other officer and 89 other ranks as reinforcements in early September 1914, and was killed in action near La Grande Loge farm, la Haute-Maison, on 7 September 1914.

A contemporary account by Corporal W. Foots states: ‘In the evening the Inniskillings had to find the outpost to the village to which we had come - on the right being an open road with a row of apple trees, and on the left a clear open plain. In the distance, about 1000 or 1200 yards, was a broad belt of wood and shrubs from which came rifle and big gun fire. This took us by surprise. We lined out and retaliated but the shelling was terrific and we had no artillery with us. Our Officers were trying to find the range and had no cover from the shells, thus exposing themselves, notably Mr. Boyd, who was standing by an apple tree by the right of the road. He was struck on the body by shrapnel and killed instantly. Also Private Cousins and 14 wounded. We continued all night in this position. In the morning the enemy had retired."’

As the only two fatal casualties Second Lieutenant Boyd and Private James Cousins were buried together near where they fell. Being rare in the locality, this British grave was well looked after by the farmer, so much so that after the War Boyd's father thanked him and arranged for the grave to remain where it was. Most unusually it has not been replaced with a C.W.G.C. headstone and is still there as a privately owned isolated grave in the care of the present landowner, one of only 5 examples of a C.W.G.C. registered Isolated Grave of British war dead on the Western Front.

Sold with copied medal index card and other research including a photograph of the recipient’s grave.