The outstanding Great War Dogger Bank D.S.C. and Antarctic 1902-04 group of six awarded to...

The outstanding Great War Dogger Bank D.S.C. and Antarctic 1902-04 group of six awarded to Lieutenant-Commander F. E. Dailey, Royal Navy, a carpenter by trade, he assisted in the building and fitting out of the Discovery and lent valuable service in Scott’s first expedition, service duly recognised by the naming of Dailey Islands in McMurdo Sound; subsequently Chief Carpenter of the cruiser Lion for much of the Great War, he was present at Heligoland Bight, Dogger Bank and Jutland, the latter action resulting in him being awarded the Russian Order of St. Anne Medal of Distinction for Foreigners Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1916, the reverse privately inscribed, ‘Chief Car. F. E. Dailey, “Dogger Bank”, H.M.S. Lion, 1915’; 1914-15 Star (Ch. Carpr. F. E. Dailey, D.S.C., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Cd. Shpt. F. E. Dailey, R.N.); Polar Medal 1904, E.VII.R., silver, 1 clasp, Antarctic 1902-04 (Carpenter F. E. Dailey. “Discovery”); Royal Geographical Society’s Silver Medal for Scott’s Antarctic Expedition 1902-04, the edge officially impressed, ‘F. E. Dailey, R.N.’, where applicable, mounted as worn, generally very fine and better (6) £18,000-£22,000 --- Importation Duty This lot is subject to importation duty of 5% on the hammer price unless exported outside the UK --- --- Provenance: Provenance: Christie’s, November 1987; R. C. Witte Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2013. D.S.C. London Gazette 3 March 1915. As per Admiral Beatty’s despatch for gallant services in the action off the Dogger Bank, dated 24 January 1915. Frederick Ernest Dailey was born in Portsmouth in 1873 and served his apprenticeship as a carpenter in Devonport Dockyard, following which, after ‘seven years of practical and theoretical shipbuilding’, he transferred to the Royal Navy and was serving in Ganges when recruited by a friend of Scott’s, a naval officer by the name of Arthur Ewart, for the Antarctic expedition. Scott wrote to Dailey from his residence in Chelsea in November 1900, confirming his appointment as Carpenter: ‘Before you go to Dundee, where the ship is building, I shall hope to see you in London and tell you more of our plans and your work.’ Scott’s first expedition Having duly assisted in the construction and fitting-out of the Discovery, Dailey was embarked for the journey South, a voyage during which he quickly made his mark with Scott, who wrote: ‘In his own department our carpenter, F. E. Dailey, worked with the same zealous care as the Boatswain. He possessed the same ‘eye’ for defects and the same determination that his charge should be beyond reproach.’ So, too, with the expedition’s Deputy Chief Scientist, George Murray, F.R.S., who was compelled to return home once the Discovery reached South Africa. Immediately on his return to the U.K. he wrote to Dailey’s mother in the following terms: ‘I promised your son when I left the Discovery at Simon’s Bay to write and assure you of his good health and and excellent spirits. He was respected and trusted by all his officers and personally I found him most useful and obliging on the voyage out to the Cape. He is a man of such excellent character that I regard him as one of the mainstays of the Expedition.’ A mainstay indeed, for, as verified by numerous published sources, he went on to participate in a number of sledging trips, Dr. Wilson noting in his diary on Wednesday 24 September that Dailey, in company with Koettlitz and Bernacchi, ‘went off man-hauling a lightly loaded sledge towards the west to investigate the old penknife ice Royds had met with in his journey’, and similarly of their return nine days later - ‘They were pretty tired out, but very perky and pleased to get home again.’ Next employed in one of the teams supporting Scott’s ‘Southern Journey’, Dailey was out on the ice sledge-hauling from 2-12 November 1902, before turning back for Hut Point on the latter date; and again six weeks later, having received a ‘Sledging Order’ from Lieutenant C. Royds, R.N., dated 31 December 1902: ‘You will proceed tomorrow with Mr. Ford and Whitfield, with provisions for 14 days, to the depot off the Bluff, the position of which you already know, taking with you 3 bags of provisions, one gallon of fuel and one box of biscuit, as a depot for Lieutenant Armitage ... Owing to the number of parties away, there is not sufficient gear to send a relief party out, should you require it. Wishing you a pleasant trip ... ’ A trip that lasted for 17 days. By this stage, Dailey had clearly established himself as a popular member of the expedition, Dr. Wilson, among others, enjoying his company: Monday 22 June 1903: ‘We sat down to our Christmas dinner to which the four Warrant Officers had been invited, namely the Bo’sun, the Second Engineer, the Chief Carpenter [Dailey] and the Steward. They were great fun and enjoyed themselves well. I had the Carpenter next me at dinner, the nicest of the four. We had the remains of the champagne that was sent on board specially for the King at Cowes. It was by no means bad stuff. The Carpenter asked me what it was about three parts through dinner. He said it wasn’t like any champagne he had ever drunk, because it “didn’t seem to do you any good.” He had done his best and had been unable to get any forrarder on it.’ Champagne interludes aside, Dailey continued to lend valuable service, and was back out on the ice man-hauling with Scott in September 1903, in a journey to the Western Depot, and again in the ‘Western Attempt’ journey of 12-21 October 1903, Scott noting in his journal of the 14th that Dailey was ‘a bit seedy, probably a little overcome with the march.’ Given the prevailing temperature of circa -50, no great surprise. With the arrival of the relief ships Morning and Terra Nova in January 1904, the expedition came to a close, although the Discovery did not break free of the ice until February. And the return voyage was not without incident in terms of Dailey’s post as Carpenter, Wilson noting how he came to the rescue when Discovery’s rudder was ‘smashed up’ at the end of the same month: ‘The only thing to do was to hoist it and put in our spare one. It is at all times a heavy and tricky undertaking, as the rudder weighs about 5 tons. Our spare rudder is a good deal smaller than the broken one and there are doubts as to whether it will steer the ship. How the shaft of our rudder got broken is not quite clear. It may have happened at the glacier, where our stern got a heavy bump, or it may have happened in Wood Bay when we were backing in some very heavy pack. Anyhow the shift is splintered and revolves in the collar with no answering movement of the blade. Dailey the carpenter noticed it.’ Dailey was invested with his Polar Medal by King Edward VII in December 1905, having earlier that year been presented with his Royal Geographical Society Medal by Admiral Sir Lewis Beaumont, G.C.B., at that time C.-in-C. Devonport. And, as verified by Scott’s post-expedition geological observations, he also left behind a permanent memorial in Antarctica: ‘The Dailey Islands are fine small conical masses surrounded by the ice in the middle of McMurdo Sound. Only one of these - the largest - has been visited, and the usual scoriaceous basalts were procured.’ Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank Dailey served with Scott in t...