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Auction: 20001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - conducted behind closed doors
Lot: 846

A campaign group of three awarded to Sergeant G. Jackson, Royal Irish Fusiliers, killed in action on 1 July 1916

1914-15 Star (14361 Sjt. G. Jackson. R. Ir: Fus:); British War and Victory Medals (14361 Sjt. G. Jackson. R. Ir. Fus.), good very fine (3)

George Wesley Jackson was born in 1895 at Tandragee, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Enlisting in September 1914 for the 4th (Portadown) Battalion, Armagh Regiment, Ulster Volunteer Force, Jackson served in one of thirteen infantry battalions raised in Ireland for the 36th (Ulster) Division. Sent to France on 4 October 1915, he was appointed Platoon Sergeant to No. 5 Platoon, 'B' Company, and was killed in action during the attack on the heavily fortified village of Beaumont Hamel on 1 July 1916 (Blacker's Boys, refers). The attack was beaten off by the German defenders and 223 officers and 5,017 other ranks from the 29th Division were killed or wounded (The National Army Museum, refers).

The attack commenced ten minutes after the British fired a huge mine beneath the Hawthorn Ridge - one of 19 mines detonated that day and famously filmed by Arthur 'Geoffrey' Herbert Malins. This was later used in his film The Battle of the Somme which combined documentary and propaganda, and reached audiences of over 20 million viewers. The son of Thomas Scott Jackson of 36 Stranmillis Gardens, Belfast, Jackson is commemorated at Thiepval Memorial on the Somme; sold with copied MIC and CWGC entry.


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Sold for
£580

Starting price
£400