A GROUP of medals from the First World War won by Major Freddy Small from Keynsham, Somerset, has sold for £5,500 at auction. 

The medals were bought at Dix Noonan Webb auction house in London by a collector with an interest in military history. 

Major Small was the first member of the Royal Flying Corps to shoot down an enemy aircraft with a machine gun.

Christopher Mellor-Hill, associate director at Dix Noonan Webb, said: "This group made a spectacular price and is a reflection of the daring and equally characterful stories of the early days of those pioneering flyers at the beginning of World War One when they were such a new and novel aspect of warfare." 

Somerset County Gazette:

A 1914 Star medal won by the first British soldier to be killed in action during the Great War, Private John Parr, was sold to a UK-based collector for £17,000 at the same auction. 

Private Parr died near Mons, Belgium, on August 21, 1914. 

The medal belonged to keen historian Barry Hobbs, who died in May aged 78. 

Dix Noonan Webb had estimated that the medal would sell for around £2,000. 

Mellor-Hill said: "This is an incredible price achieved for what is a most iconic medal for the First World War and reflects greatly on all those who also lost their lives so tragically during the Great War.

"We are extremely pleased how much interest it attracted as well as from military institutions and educational establishments, and we hope that the successful buyer, who is a keen battlefield enthusiast of the Great War, might put it on display so that its importance will be known to future generations." 

A group of medals won by Lieutenant William Tapsell, including a Distinguished Conduct Medal, sold for £10,000 to a collector in Europe. 

Lieutenant Tapsell died at the second Battle of the Somme shortly before the war ended.