First World War sniper's medals beat estimate five-fold at auction, selling for £28,800

A medal group awarded to Lieutenant Neville W Methven has sold for £28,800, after going to auction with an estimate of £3,000 to £5,000.

The lot related to Lieutenant Methven's service with Bailey's South African Sharpshooters, a 24-man specialist sniper unit privately financed by South African diamond and gold tycoon Sir Abe Bailey. 

The unit was formed from South African and Southern Rhodesian marksmen and sent to the Western Front, where it served on attachment to the British 1st Division from April 1916 until the Armistice. Methven was the unit's only officer and commanding officer.

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According to the auction catalogue, Methven later stated that between them the two dozen snipers claimed the lives of around 3,000 enemy soldiers, including his own personal tally of "well over 100".

The lot included his Military Cross, dated June 1917, his British War Medal and Bi-Lingual Victory Medal, and his 1937 Coronation Medal. 

It was offered with matching miniature medals, four original cardboard boxes of issue (two named), 16 shooting-prize medals in silver and bronze, assorted buttons, badges and insignia, and a small archive of related documents, letters and photographs, including his Officer's Record of Services pocket book.

After the war, Methven returned to civilian life as a bank manager and honorary chief game warden. 

The catalogue notes that in the mid-1930s he killed a pride of eight lions in Nyasaland in a single night, an episode described as demonstrating "nerves of steel".