A scarce Queen’s Birthday Honours June 1959 Companion of the Imperial Service Order, Great War and Coronation 1953 group awarded to Mr. W.A. Squires, I.S.O., Civil Service, the Deputy Director of Audit for the Exchequer and Audit Department, who was appointed a Companion of the Imperial Service Order in Queen’s Birthday Honours on 13 June 1959 when living in Sanderstead, Surrey, though he was originally from Plymouth, Devon. Squires worked in this profession with the Civil Service since August 1919. During the Great War he had seen service as a Private in the Somerset Light Infantry.
Group of 4: Imperial Service Order, I.S.O., silver, gilt and enamels, EIIR cypher, hallmarks for London with date letter ‘b’ for 1957, housed in its Elkington and Co of London fitted presentation case; British War Medal and Victory Medal; (5704 A.CPL. W.A. SQUIRES. SOM.L.I.); Coronation Medal 1953, this housed in its card box of issue.
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine.
Together with the following:
Warrant of Appointment to be a Companion of the Imperial Service Order, inscribed to: ‘William Augustine Squires Esquire’, dated 13 June 1959, signed in ink by Norman Brook, the Secretary of the Imperial Service Order, and also bearing the facsimile signature of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. This with both its from and back protective card pages.
Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood transmittance letter for the Warrant for the Imperial Service Order, this baring typed details to: ‘William Augustine Squires, Esq., I.S.O.’, and housed in its forwarding envelope, addressed to: ‘W.A. Squires, Esq., 14, Westfield Avenue, Sanderstead, Surrey.’
Original Statutes booklet for 1954 for the Imperial Service Order.
Award Certificate for the Coronation Medal 1953, this inscribed to: ‘William Augustine Squires, Esquire’.
Recipient’s group of matching miniature medals, mounted swing style as worn. The first is very scarce in miniature.
William Augustine Squires was born born on 5 December 1897 in Plymouth, Devon, the son of Arnold Matthew Francis Squires and Sellna Frances, nee Lowman. He was the fourth child of five, with his younger brother being born in January 1899, in which year, his father deserted the family home and took up with another woman, Charlotte Lily Irish, whom he married at Heavitree in Devon in April 1901. His mother and the five children went to live with the maternal grandfather in Plymouth, where the family was as of 1901, and by 1911 the family with grandparents had moved to Wells in Somerset. His grandfather, John H. Lowman, was an insurance agent for the Pearl Life Office, and his mother had worked as an assurance agent. This no doubt later influenced William Augustine Squires in his choice of profession.
Owing to the Great War he saw service as a Private (No.5704) with the Somerset Light Infantry, but with the war over, was then appointed ‘with competition’ under the Reconstruction Scheme to the Civil Service as an Examiner with Exchequer and Audit Department on 13 August 1919 and became an Auditor in March 1922. He married Alice May Hildred Harvey at Wembley on 29 April 1922. As of 1939 he was still working as an Auditor, but had been then moved to Westfield Avenue in Sanderstead, Surrey. He married for a second time in September 1939 at Croydon.
Squires became the Deputy Director of Audit for the Exchequer and Audit Department, being awarded the Coronation Medal 1953, and then appointed a Companion of the Imperial Service Order in Queen’s Birthday Honours, as published in the London Gazette for 13 June 1959, this being around the time of his retirement. He is last shown to be residing in Sanderstead in 1973, but was living at 7 St. Mary’s Close, Garden Farm Estate, Chester-Le-Street, Durham, when he died on 3 February 1980. Confirmed as his full entitlement.
