Sunday 21 April 2013

Malay States Volunteer Rifles (MSVR) 'Multiple Casualty' Medal Group to Lieut. Douglas Duncan Booth


This medal group is currently being sold by Aberdeen Medal (http://www.aberdeenmedals.com)

Unique to regiment 'Multiple Casualty' campaign & long service group: Lieutenant Douglas Duncan Booth, late 'U' University Company 4th 'City of Aberdeen' Battalion Gordon Highlanders (Territorial Force) and Malay States Volunteer Rifles

- 1914-15 Star (1763 Pte. D.D. Booth. Gord. Highrs.)
- British War Medal. Silver issue (Lieut D. D. Booth.)
- Interallied Victory Medals. With emblem on riband (Lieut D. D. Booth.)
- Africa General Service 1902. GV issue 'Nigeria 1918' (Lieut D. D. Booth.Gordons.)
- Colonial Auxiliary Forces LS&GC Medal. GV issue (Pte. Douglas D Booth, M.S.V.R.)

Important: Recipient is confirmed as having been 'Wounded-in-Action' on no less than three occassions during the Great War 

Important: All medals and clasp - but not the MID emblem - are confirmed as entitled per below respective authorities;

- Great War trio of campaign medals: Medal Index Card
- AGS Medal: Reference medal roll WO 100/409 signed at Ibadan Nigeria on 7 August 1925
- CAFLSM: Ref Federated Malay States Government Gazette 6 March 1925 


Douglas Duncan Booth was born on 1 May 1894 at Countesswells, Aberdeen, Scotland, and commenced studying agriculture at Aberdeen University in 1913. Enrolling in ‘U’ Company, the University Company of the 4th Gordons, in April 1914, he was mobilised with his unit on the outbreak of hostilities


In February 1915 the Battalion was sent to the Front and on 27 August Booth was wounded by a gunshot wound to his leg and was evacuated to England a few days later. By September 1915 he had rejoined his unit but he was again wounded on the 25th of that month, in the Battle of Hooge, this time by shrapnel in the left leg and buttocks, and in the right temple, ‘while in a charge’. Once more evacuated home, he was operated on at Aberdeen, fragments of shrapnel being removed from his left leg and right temple.


Commissioned into the 6th Gordons in August 1916, Booth joined his new Battalion at the Front in the following month, but yet again, on the 6 November, fell victim to enemy fire, picking up a gunshot wound in one of his hands, in addition to barbed wire lacerations. This time, however, he was not evacuated home, but by March 1917 his old wounds from Hooge necessitated just such action, an abcess having developed on his left buttock, the one area that had not been operated on back in 1915.


On recovery Booth was sent to West Africa on attachment to the 4th Battalion of the Nigeria Regiment, and participated in the expedition against the Egba tribe in the Summer of 1918, subsequently receiving one of just three Africa General Service Medals with ‘Nigeria 1918’ clasp to be awarded to the Gordons -his was the only one to an Officer.


Booth was eventually demobilised back in the U.K. in July 1919 and went to Malaya, where he enrolled in the Malay States Volunteer Rifles as a Private. And in June 1932 he was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Long Service Medal (Federated Malay States Government Gazette refers). 


Duncan Booth was a long time expatriate British 'Rubber Planter' in South East Asia, known to have worked variously across the Netherlands East Indies and Malaya between circa 1922-1957. His address in Malaya on the Medal Index Card is shows as 'Sion Estate, Batu Caves, Federated Malay States'. Immigration records for the inter-war years show him still a resident in the Federated Malay States in March 1938, where he lived with his wife and two daughters. A passenger manifest list for a vessel arriving in United Kingdom in 1957, shows him as again being resident in Malaya! Duncan Booth died at Honiton, Devon, England in the first quarter of 1973.


The medals professionally court-mounted by Spink - the Great War medals resplendent with silk watered ribands. The medal mounting bar retaining the original stout long hinged brass pin and clasp fittings


Sold together with large hard-copy set of the recipients officers service papers

Provenance: A.J. Henderson Collection, DNW, 2 April 2003

Condition: VF


Code: 13901

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