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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 341

Six: Colonel A. S. Parkin, Royal Army Service Corps

1914 Star (2. Lieut: A. S. Parkin. A.S.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. A. S. Parkin.); France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted as worn, scratches to reverse of first, nearly very fine (3)

Arthur Stuart Parkin was born on 26 August 1896, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Parkin and Laura Janet Parkin, who were married at Ilkley, Yorkshire, on 2 October 1892. Arthur grew up at Newbury, Berkshire, and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps on 1 October 1914. He served in France from 5 November 1914 - in the 3rd Divisional Train - and was promoted Lieutenant on 1 October 1916 and Captain on 29 November 1917.

Following the Armistice, Parkin commanded the R.A.S.C. Training Establishment in 1920 and lived at the H.Q., A.S.C., at Aldershot. In 1927, he became A.D.C. to the Governor of Mauritius, at a time when many sugarcane labourers bore increasing discontent with the plantation owners. The temporary 'sugar boom' had brought prosperity to the island, but it was the owners who benefitted; increasing civil unrest lead to many deaths, the majority Indian landowners.

During the Second World War Parkin continued to serve with the Royal Army Service Corps, firstly in Jamaica in 1940 and later in Western Europe. Retaining the rank of Honorary Colonel, he ceased to belong to the Reserve of Officers having exceeded the age limit, on 21 November 1951. He lived with his wife Doris at Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, finally passing away at the Royal Naval Hospital, Gosport, on 6 February 1988.

Sold with an archive of original photographs and substantial research on the Parkin family; his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Parkin, died in France on 27 September 1915 whilst leading the men of the 7th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment in a charge.


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Sold for
£220