Ned Cowell joins the firm with many years’ saleroom and rostrum experience, and hopes to take the newly-formed department forward with a series of specialist sales encompassing medals, arms and armour, orders, militaria and associated disciplines plus coins and medallions.
Cowell started his career as a saleroom porter in Chippenham before moving to George Kidner in Lymington in 2002 where he combined his enthusiasm for weapons and military history with a series of regular auctions which he introduced in 2005. He joined Woolley & Wallis in early May and is based at the Old Sarum offices in Salisbury.
Commenting on his appointment, Cowell says: “I am delighted to be joining Woolley & Wallis and starting a dedicated department covering fields I am so passionate about. There are more and more collectors looking to augment their collections so now is a good time to be selling… it is a privilege to join the company.”
DSO Medals
His first sale is scheduled for October 19, and consignments are already being accepted including orders, gallantry and campaign awards, coins and medallions, edged weapons, firearms, armour and militaria.
Currently a DSO group of two medals awarded to Captain Harry Crewe Godley, Northumberland Fusiliers, are being offered with an estimate of £2000-3000. Godley was born in 1861, serving in South Africa from 1899-1900. “The DSO was awarded for the excellent service he rendered during a campaign when he was left in command of a post with two companies of the Northampton regiment to command Enslin Railway Station… and defended it for nine hours against a force of nearly 1000 mounted Boers… and resisted the attack until relieved by reinforcements when the enemy retreated.” (Creagh and Humphris, The Distinguished Service Order 1886-1923).
Newly-consigned items also include the campaign medals to a Parachute Regiment veteran of Operation Barras (Sierra Leone 2000). This was an operation in which a squadron of the SAS, supported by elements of 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment, freed five soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment who had been taken hostage by a militia group called The West Side Boys. Estimate £5,000-6,000.
The first valuation day for Ned Cowell will be on Tuesday, May 24, from 10am-1pm at The Swan Hotel, Watercress Room, 11 West Street, Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9AD. For more information please contact him on email nc@woolleyandwallis.co.uk or 01722 341469.
