Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Great War M.M. group of four awarded to 2nd Lieutenant G. H. Hobby, Welch Regiment, late Monmouthshire Regiment, who was killed in action in October 1918

Military Medal, G.V.R. (2106 Cpl. G. H. Hobby, 1/3 Mon. R. - T.F.); 1914-15 Star (2106 Pte., Monmouth. R.); British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.), generally good very fine (4) £600-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Monmouthshire Regiment formed by Lt. Col. P. A. Blagojevic, O. St. J., T.D..

View
Collection

M.M. London Gazette 11 November 1916.

Grenville Howard Hobby, a native of Abertillery, was killed in action on 20 October 1918, while serving as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 14th Battalion, Welch Regiment, which unit had been allocated to an attack on enemy positions along the Selle railway and the nearby “Quarry” feature.

Hobby had been ‘among the first in Abertillery to volunteer when war broke out, throwing in his lot with the 3rd Battalion, Monmouthshire Regiment in August 1914.’ Embarked for active service in mid-February 1915, he witnessed considerable fighting in the Ypres salient and was advanced to Corporal that September. But it was in the following year, possibly on the Somme, that he won his M.M., when his unit was ordered forward to the 36th (Ulster) Division’s positions in front of the Schwaben Redoubt on the evening of the 1 July.

Having witnessed further active service with the 1st Battalion, April to June 1917, Hobby returned home and was commissioned into the Welch Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant that October, and he served variously in the 3rd and 17th Battalions before being attached to the 14th Battalion back out in France, with whom, as related above, he was killed in action in October 1918. He was 26 years of age and is buried in the Montay-Neuvilly Road Cemetery, north of Le Cateau, France.