Help Needed to Locate My Great-Grandfather’s Medal Group – Pte George Searle (7th Hussars / 14th Hussars)
Hello everyone,
I am hoping the collector and research community might be able to help my family locate my great-grandfather’s medal group, which has been missing from our family for many years.
The medals belonged to my great-grandfather:
Private George Searle
Service number: 3525
7th (Queen’s Own) Hussars, later 14th Hussars
Born 1872 in Haslemere, Surrey
Died 1944 in Chichester, Sussex
His medal group consisted of three medals:
• British South Africa Company Medal – clasp Mashonaland 1897
Named: *3525 Pte G Searle 7th Hussars*
• Queen’s South Africa Medal – clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal
Named: *132 Pte G Searle 14th Hussars*
• King’s South Africa Medal – clasps South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902
Named: *133 Pte G Searle 14th Hussars*
Research shows that this group was later sold at auction by Dix Noonan Webb (now Noonans Mayfair) in December 2001, where it realised £400.
Unfortunately, the medals had actually left our family much earlier. In the 1980s, while my grandfather was away serving in the British Army, his sibling unknowingly sold the medals somewhere in London to help pay for their mother’s funeral. The medals had in fact been left to my grandfather by his father, and he had no idea they had been sold until much later.
My grandfather is now 93 years old and in poor health, and he has spent decades hoping that one day he might find his father’s medals again. I have recently taken over the search in the hope that we might locate them while he is still with us.
The inscriptions on the medals are distinctive and would read:
3525 Pte G Searle 7th Hussars
132 Pte G Searle 14th Hussars
133 Pte G Searle 14th Hussars
If anyone recognises this medal group, has seen it in a collection, catalogue, or sale, or knows who might currently own it, I would be extremely grateful for any information.
Our family completely understands that the medals may now be part of a collector’s collection. Our hope is simply to make contact with the current owner, and if possible one day reunite them with the family who still treasures the memory of the man who earned them.
Thank you very much to anyone who takes the time to read this or share the information. Any help at all would mean a great deal to our family.
Kind regards,
Daniel Parker
