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Auction: 22002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 77

Three: Lieutenant J. Y. Greig, Scottish Rifles and Machine Gun Corps, who was made Private Secretary to Stanley Baldwin after having been wounded in the head on the Western Front

1914-15 Star (2. Lieut. J. Y. Greig. Sco. Rif.); British War and Victory Medals (2. Lieut. J. Y Greig.), nearly extremely fine (3)

John Yeatman Greig was born on 1 February 1893, the son of The Venerable Archdeacon J. H. Greig, Archdeacon of Worcester. Young Greig was educated at Eton and Christ's College, Oxford. Upon the outbreak of the Great War he joined the 21st Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (formerly the Eton College O.T.C.) and was discharged to enter the Royal Military College in November 1914. Greig was commissioned into the Scottish Rifles in April 1915 and he sailed for France on 28 June 1915 to join the 1st Battalion. He was thence attached to the 5th (Entrenching) Battalion from 5 August-4 November. Greig was seconded for duty with the 19th Brigade Machine Gun Company on 24 February 1916 and was wounded in action on 24 June. He suffered wounds to his head - a gunshot wound to his scalp and a fractured skull - the result of shell fire. Evacuated to the 33rd Divisional Casualty Clearing Station at Bethune, Greig made it back to England by 1 July 1916.

He was not fit for overseas service and the Medical Board suggested light duties. Greig was appointed to be Private Secretary to the Lord of the Treasury, Stanley Baldwin, in February 1917. Such was the standard of the service he gave that Baldwin wrote to ask to keep him on when a call came to report back to the Machine Gun Corps HQ in April 1917. That obviously did the trick as he did not go up to Grantham. Greig was afterwards appointed as an Assistant Master of Classics in the Summer Term of 1918 back at Eton College, having not heard anything further from the War Office. Though he was unfit for active service after having been wounded he did more than his share on the Home Front, resigning his commission on 29 November 1919. Becoming a solicitor, he was married in 1924 and died in 1952 at Tonbridge, Kent, having married the widow of an Indian Army Colonel in 1948; sold together with copied research.

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Sold for
£260

Starting price
£80