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Auction: 18001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 175

Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (R. Whillock, A.B., H.M.S. Dwarf.), suspension re-affixed, otherwise good very fine

Richard Whillock was born in Birmingham on 12 January 1879 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in February 1894. Advanced to Able Seaman in March 1898, he witnessed active service off South Africa in the gunboat Dwarf in 1902 and qualified for the Queen's South Africa Medal, one of 176 awards to the ship.

Discharged in March 1905, he joined the Royal Fleet Reserve and was recalled on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. Quickly joining the pre-dreadnought battleship H.M.S. Ocean, he was present in her at the bombardment of the Dardanelles forts and indeed on the occasion of her loss on 18 March 1915 when, going to the assistance of the stricken Irresistible, she struck a mine and sank.

Whillock found himself in the drink for a second time when the old battleship H.M.S. Cornwallis was torpedoed and sunk east of Malta by the U-32 on 9 January 1917. Having then been demobilised on 31 May 1917, he was re-rated as an Acting Leading Seaman (D.A.M.S.) based at President III and it was in this capacity that he was killed in action on 20 October 1917, when serving aboard the steamship Algarve, the ship being sunk by a German submarine 15 miles W.S.W. of Portland Bill on 20 October 1917. His previous luck had finally run out.

Whillock, who left a widow, Leah Whillock of Birmingham, is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial; sold with copied service record and research.


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Sold for
£150