However, that was not the main draw for the successful bidder at Gloucestershire saleroom Tayler & Fletcher (18% buyer’s premium) on February 18. As is often the case in medal collecting, Lt-Col Alfred Scott Hewitt’s (1876-1955) original regiment proved much more important.
Henry Forcer Evans from Tayler & Fletcher said: “The buyer, a collector of medals to the Royal West Kent Regiment for the last 40 years, bid over the phone. He told me he was prepared to pay quite a bit more than he did, as only about 30 1914 Stars were issued to officers of the regiment.
“He had over a hundred gallantry groups and around 300 groups and singles – from a man who died in Egypt in 1882 to a man who died in Cyprus in 1958 and men from campaigns in between.”
Distinguished career
Hewitt’s First World War honours with the Royal West Kent Regiment featured a DSO, OBE, Order of the Crown of Italy and Croix de Guerre. Before then, his distinguished career included 14 months in South Africa with the Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles and battles at Biddulphsberg, Witteberg and Caledon River.
In 1924 he was appointed Deputy Provost Marshal (CI BB) in the Corps of Military Police (Rhine) and retired in 1926 as a lieutenant-colonel.
