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Auction: 25112 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 419

A Great War campaign, 'good shooting' and long service group of six awarded to Chief Petty Officer T. McCappin, Royal Navy, who was present at Jutland in the armoured cruiser H.M.S. Minotaur

1914-15 Star (177112 T. McCappin, P.O., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (177112 T. McCappin, C.P.O., R.N.); Imperial Service Medal, G.VI.R., 2nd issue (Thomas McCappin), officially re-impressed; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (177112 Thomas McCappen, P.O., H.M.S. Minotaur), note surname spelling; Naval Good Shooting Medal, G.V.R., 1st issue (177112 T. McCappin, P.O., H.M.S. Minotaur, 1913. 12 Pdr. Q.F.), note minor variation in surname spelling, generally good very fine (6)

Thomas McCappin was born in Liverpool on 23 May 1878 and entered the Royal Navy directly from school as a Boy 2nd Class in October 1893.

His first seagoing appointment was aboard the battleship H.M.S. Revenge from January 1896 until December 1899, in which period he was advanced to Ordinary Seaman in May 1896 and to Able Seaman in February 1898, in addition to serving in operations off Crete in the latter year. Having then attended the gunnery establishment Excellent, where he qualified as a Seaman Gunner 1st Class in October 1900, he rejoined the Revenge and was advanced to Leading Seaman in November 1901 and to Petty Officer 2nd Class in May 1902, but was in Dryad at the time of being appointed a Petty Officer 1st Class.

McCappin's skills as a gunner were much apparent in his time aboard the armoured cruiser Minotaur from May 1912 until July 1918, initially in the former year when he was awarded the Naval Good Shooting Medal for his good work on 12-pounder quick firing guns and later no doubt when Minotaur bombarded the German wireless station on Yap Island in the Pacific on 12 August 1914. A day or two earlier, she and her consorts had captured and then sunk the German collier Elsbeth.

He and his shipmates came home to join the 7th Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet in the following year, and he was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in January 1916. But by the time of her part in the Battle of Jutland, Minotaur was the flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral H. L. Heath, C.B., M.V.O.

McCappin was appointed a Gunlayer 1st Class in December 1916 and an acting Chief Petty Officer in September 1917, and he finally came ashore from Minotaur in July 1918. Demobilised in December 1919, he went on to find employment in the Ministry of Transport as a Senior Outdoor Officer and was awarded his Imperial Service Medal (London Gazette 17 May 1949, refers); sold with an original photograph, together with copied research.

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