A Great War M.B.E. group of five awarded to Commander S. G. Gorton, Royal Naval Reserve,...

A Great War M.B.E. group of five awarded to Commander S. G. Gorton, Royal Naval Reserve, late Mercantile Marine The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Civil) Member’s 1st type breast badge, silver, hallmarks for London 1919, in Garrard, London, case of issue; British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. S. G. Gorton. R.N.R.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45, the Second War medals late issue, in named boxes of issue, extremely fine (5) £180-£220 --- M.B.E. London Gazette, 1 January 1918. Sandford George Gorton, a Master Mariner and Assistant Cable Engineer, was born in Richmond, Surrey, on 9 October 1883. He was serving in the Mercantile Marine attached to the General Post Office on the outbreak of the Great War, and within hours, whilst serving in S.S. Monarch, was engaged in removing enemy cables from the English Channel. He survived her sinking on 8 September 1915, later returning to sea in Monarch 3. Awarded the M.B.E. on 1 January 1918, he was congratulated in a letter from W. Swift, an Engineer with the General Post Office, who wrote: ‘In recognition of your loyal devotion to duty and of the services you have rendered to the Department and to the State under trying and exacting circumstances involving as they did such a considerable risk.’ Commissioned as a Temporary Lieutenant into the Royal Naval Reserve on 25 March 1918, Gorton appears in an Absent Voters’ List of Autumn 1918 as serving in the Anti-Submarine Division of the Admiralty. Demobilised on 15 December 1919 after retiring from the G.P.O earlier in February, he returned to sea as a Captain and later rejoined the Royal Naval Reserve as a Commander for service during the Second War, serving at home, again with the Anti-Submarine Material Department at the Admiralty. Advanced Acting Temporary Captain in August 1943, he was demobilised in April 1946 and later died in Jersey in 1958. Additionally entitled to the Mercantile Marine War Medal, his Second War medals were issued in 2013. Sold with detailed copied research and copied photograph of the recipient in uniform.