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Auction: 24112 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 625

Three: Lieutenant-Commander C. L. P. Matheson, Straits Settlements Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; War Medal 1939-45, with box of issue with medal enclosure slip addressed to 'Lt. Cdr. C. L. P. Matheson, R.N.R., The Cottage, Handell Close, Edgeware, Middlesex', good very fine (3)

Colin Lister Picton Matheson was the son of Colin Lister Matheson and was born on 17 November 1900 in Malaya. Educated at St. Andrews School, Singapore, he went into business joining subsidiary companies of Jardine Matheson in the Far East, initially Ejineo Company Ltd and later the Borneo Company Ltd where he spent the bulk of his prewar career.

He was a founding member of the Malayan Magic Circle formed in 1935 performing magic shows to the British military and other organisations in Singapore and Johore. He was also a local football referee; there are numerous mentions of him in the Singapore and Malayan newspapers of the period.

Commissioned Sub Lieutenant in the Straits Settlements Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 7 May 1934, which had been formed in Singapore on 27 April 1934. Its HQ ship from 1935 was the sloop Laburnum which arrived from New Zealand with its Kiwi crest and was berthed in the Telok Ayer basin. In 1934 the Straits Settlements RNVR consisted of 25 Officers and 150 mostly Malay ratings. By 1939 it had expanded to100 officers and 300 ratings with a Penang section established under Commander Alexander RN.

Advanced to Temp. Paymaster Lieutenant on 23 December 1939 he was posted to Sultan, the Singapore shore base.

Fortuitously for Matheson he left Singapore prior to the invasion by the Japanese in 1942, postings included Lanka, Tana, Clio (confidential book and cypher duties), ending the Second World War on Yeoman.

His brother David Roderick Lister Picton Matheson who had served in the Machine Gun Corps during the Great War and was later a Superintendent of police in Malaya died as a prisoner of the Japanese on 13 June 1945 in Java. Colin died in December 1982.


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Sold for
£160

Starting price
£40