PRIVATE R. HUNTER, 2ND BATTALION SCOTS GUARDS. Three: British War and Victory Medals (offi
£180.00
PRIVATE R. HUNTER, 2ND BATTALION SCOTS GUARDS. Three: British War and Victory Medals (officially impressed: 16277 PTE. R. HUNTER. S. GDS.) British Expeditionary Force Vegetable Show, Havre, August 1918, silver prize medal, oval, 58mm, with ornate integral suspension loop and silver jump ring suspender. Obverse, the sun rising over a field of vegetables, a ribbon bearing the title “British Expeditionary Force” above and a ribbon bearing the additional legend “Vegetable Show Havre Aug 1918” below, the whole within a crowned laurel wreath, reverse engraved “Leeks, 2nd Prize”, Birmingham hallmark for 1918 and maker’s mark G.&S. Co. Ltd. BWM and Victory Medal pair Good Very Fine to Almost Extremely Fine, prize medal Extremely Fine and virtually as struck.
The silver Vegetable Show prize medal that accompanies this group is of superior workmanship, struck in high relief and on a heavy planchet (weight 24.6 grammes).
Group accompanied by 8 pages copied service papers and copied WW1 Medal Index card, confirming British War and Victory Medals only, and that Hunter saw service exclusively with the Scots Guards during WW1 (not entitled 1914 or 1914-15 Star).
Robert Walter Reid Hunter was born in the parish of Maxwelltown, Dumfries. He was called up at Dumfries on 6/12/1916 and initially posted for service with the 3rd Battalion Scots Guard on the same day. At the time of enlistment Hunter was 34 years of age, gave his trade as that of gardener, and home address as 144 Irish Street, Dumfries. Hunter transferred to the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards on 19/8/1917 and was discharged on 20/3/1919, never having risen above the rank of Private. In addition to service at home, Hunter saw service in France,18/8/1917 to 20/2/1919.
The men of the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards gained a reputation during WW1 for their prowess as gardeners. The regimental history “The Scots Guards in the Great War” recording that whilst the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards was stationed behind the lines at Cartigny in April 1917 the commanding officer of the battalion organised a competition for the best garden in the camp, and notes that the men of the battalion were “so keen on this that every tent had its garden”.
John Lewis Stemple, in his “Where the Poppies Blow”, also records that, whilst based behind the lines at Cartigny in the Spring of 1917, the men of the 2nd Scots Guards carried out a floral transformation of their camp, laying out heart shaped flower beds, and filled them with crimson flowers “to give them a suggestion of passion and loyalty and suffering” and that they also designed flower beds in the shape of their regimental cap badge, and even laid out a floral clock to a design based on the one in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. Stemple records that the men of the 2nd Scots Guards’ “inspiration” was a Private Armstrong, formerly a gardener in peacetime for a Scottish laird. He inspired other ment in his battalion to garden, using petrol cans with holes in the bottom as watering cans. The battalion’s commanding officer presented gardening prizes, awarding a special prize to Armstrong for his “genius” in inspiring many of his comrades to take up gardening. A fellow soldier described him as one of the strongest men in the battalion, an expert wrestler, but also one of the most gentle.
The British Expeditionary Force did not confine itself to just cultivating flowers (as Hunter’s prize medal for leeks indicates). Vegetables were also cultivated on a large scale, Stemple noting that by mid 1918 the British army in France was, as a result of large-scale arable farming projects, “practically self-supporting in vegetables”.
Group also accompanied by a brief article from the OMRS Journal, giving details of an exhibition mounted in 2015 by the Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB, to mark the centenary of the start of WW1. The exhibition included photographs of allotments maintained by the front line troops during the war, noting that the vegetables grown by the troops were used to supplement their rations, the troops holding horticultural competitions and awarding gold, silver and bronze medals for the best and biggest vegetables. Flowers were also grown for therapeutic and recreational purposes, as well as to decorate graves and remind the men of home.