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HK BRIT PO IN CHINA - Postal Stationery: 1930 10c reg env (size H) with amended compensation & fee table (Yang 56) odd trivial tone, otherwise fine unused and one of the rarest HK stationery items, also defective size K env (Yang 22) un and front from same with 37c in adhesives used from Shanghai to USA (3)
A rat tail pattern table service comprising: 12 soup spoons 708 gms 4 table spoons 495 gms 9 table forks 779 gms 11 dessert spoons 510 gms 11 dessert forks 510 gms pair of sauce ladles 325 gms soup ladles 382 gms pair of asparagus servers 325 gms 5 tea spoons 325 gms salt spoons, two mustard spoons 28 gms together with 11 table knives, 4 cheese knives, a carver, 2 forks and a steel in a fitted oak canteen, by Walker and Hall, Sheffield 1935 3317 gms
A well-documented inter-war O.B.E. group of six awarded to Senior Assistant Secretary F. N. Smith, a long served staff member of the Home Office and Admiralty, late Lieutenant & Observer in the Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1927, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.A.F.); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953, these last three in their card boxes of issue, together with a Ministry of Pensions’ bronze-gilt football prize medal, dated 1924, and a rather unusual presentation ‘miniature light house ‘, gilt, in its fitted case of issue, and a set of related miniature dress medals, the second and third with official corrections, good very fine and better (14) £300-350 O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1931. Frank Nevill Smith, who was born in June 1896 and educated at Wyggeston School, transferred into the newly established Royal Air Force from the Royal Naval Air Service in the rank of Lieutenant & Observer in April 1918, having, it is believed, seen service in seaplanes. Following his demobilisation, and a brief appointment at the Admiralty, Smith joined the Ministry of Pensions, in which capacity he served as Private Secretary to Sir George Crystal, the Rt. Hon. F. O. Roberts and Major the Rt. Hon. G. C. Tryon, the latter during the Baldwin Government, services that resulted in the award of his O.B.E. in 1931, which insignia he received at a Buckingham Palace investiture held in February of that year. Next employed as a representative at the British Ministry of Pensions in Ottawa, Canada, he returned home to a take up a new appointment in the Ministry of Health in 1935. Two years later, he transferred to the Home Office, and served as Principal Private Secretary in the Fire Service Department for much of the Second World War, ‘when he shared the perils of the firefighters during the 1940-41 blitzes, at the stations and on the fireground’. Shortly before the end of hostilities, however, Smith gained another appointment in the Admiralty, and served as Secretary to the British Admiralty Technical Mission in Ottawa 1944-46, and as Civil Adviser to the British Admiralty Delegation in Washington 1946-47. Indeed he remained employed by Their Lordships until his retirement in 1957, latterly having served back in the U.K. as Head of Department in the Admiralty’s Labour Branch. And as evidenced by accompanying documentation, he came into regular contact with influential civil servants, politicians and senior naval staff throughout this period, among the latter being Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten. Sold with a large file of original documentation and photographs, the latter including several pages from an old album with approximately 25 images of Great War aircraft and other subject matter, and around 20 later images, largely relating to his time with the Admiralty in the 1940s and 50s; together with Central Chancery O.B.E. investiture letter, dated 6 February 1931; assorted correspondence, including letters to Smith from Lord Hailsham, Sir John Lang, G.C.B., Secretary of the Admiralty, Sir Richard Powell, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G., a Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, congratulating him on his handling of the ‘Malta Arbitration case ‘in 1949, and the Rt. Hon. Frederick Roberts; two old carbon copies of letters written by senior courtier Sir Alan Lascelles, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., C.M.G., M.C., the first regarding the death of King George V and the second the abdication of Edward VIII, the latter with no punches pulled, and presumably retained by Smith while employed at the Home Office; formal invitations and menus (12), one or two of the latter bearing signatures of fellow guests, and including a table plan of an evening at Forte’s Restaurant, when Smith was seated next to Mountbatten, in addition to a Trafalgar Night Dinner at Greenwich in the presence of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, 21 October 1955; and assorted career newspaper cuttings.
An extremely rare Boer War R.R.C. pair awarded to Nursing Sister H. Hogarth, Army Nursing Service Reserve, one of just three such decorations granted for services in hospital ships in the Boer War, in her case as a hand-picked member of staff aboard the Princess of Wales Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with original riband and brooch-pin for wearing; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Nursing Sister H. Hogarth), enamel slightly chipped on upper arm of the first, otherwise good very fine (2) £2000-3000 R.R.C. London Gazette 26 June 1902: ‘Miss H. Hogarth, Army Nursing Service Reserve, Hospital Ship Princess of Wales.’ Mention in despatches London Gazette 17 June 1902 (Lord Roberts’ final despatch). Helen Hogarth was one of just four nursing staff hand-picked by H.R.H. Princess Christian to serve on the royal hospital ship Princess of Wales and the only ‘Nursing Sister ‘to receive the Royal Red Cross for services in such circumstances. ‘The Princess of Wales ‘Much of the history behind the creation of the Princess of Wales is well documented in the columns of The Times, Lord Wantage having corresponded with the newspaper in October 1899 about the creation of the Central British Red Cross Committee, including the Army Nursing Service Reserve, whose President was H.R.H. Princess Christian. In turn she became Honorary President of the newly formed Committee, out of which emerged the funding for a fully equipped hospital ship. The vessel in question, the well-known yachting steamer Midnight Sun, was chartered for the purpose and sent to the Armstrong works for the necessary alterations into a 200-bed hospital ship, ready to leave for South Africa by the end of November 1899. In addition to assisting with the cost of fitting the ship, Her Royal Highness spent more than £1,000 in luxuries and comforts for the sick and wounded soldiers and, at the express wish of the Central British Red Cross Committee, consented that the ship be called the Princess of Wales. In the company of her husband, she visited the ship at Tilbury Docks in late November, just before her departure for South Africa - painted white, the Princess of Wales had the Geneva Cross ‘standing out in bold relief on her side’. The Times continues: ‘The interior fittings have been swept away, commodious wards taking the place of dining room, music room, and so on, and the ship now represents a perfectly equipped floating hospital. There are three large wards, and one small one, the last being for officers, and altogether cots are provided for about 200 patients .. The operating room is on the lower deck, in the middle of the ship, and is fitted, not only with a cluster of electric lights showing right down on the operating table, but with the Rontgen rays, as well. Then there is a well-arranged dispensary and also an isolation ward. In addition to the wards already spoken of there are some private cabins available for sick and wounded officers. Three refrigerating rooms with a total capacity of 2,200 feet, have been arranged, in order to allow of an adequate supply of fresh meat being carried for the long voyage. The Principal Medical Officer will be Major Morgan, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and he will have three assistants from the same corps. Of nursing sisters there will be four Ð one, who will superintend, from the Army Nursing Service, and three from the Army Nursing Service Reserve of the Central British Red Cross Committee. The three have been personally selected by Princess Christian, who has taken the greatest interest in the arrangements .. The nurses (Sisters Chadwick, Brebner, Hogarth, and Spooner), the staff and the men of the Royal Army Medical Corps who go out with the vessel were drawn up on deck as the Royal party came on board. Passing through commodious wards the Royal visitors entered the officers’ ward, into which the dining and music rooms have been converted, and inspected the numerous appliances provided for the relief of the patients .. To the personnel as well as to the vessel the Princess of Wales devoted much attention. Her Royal Highness presented to each nurse a distinguishing badge and addressed to them individually a few words of encouragement and approbation .. The Princess then proceeded along the line of R.A.M.C. men, 23 in number, and to each she handed a badge. To a similar number of the St. John Ambulance Brigade Her Royal Highness also gave badges and expressed special interest in this branch of the hospital staff, who, for the first time, are being sent abroad for service.’ And those services were much required by the time the Princess of Wales reached South Africa in the wake of ‘Black Week ‘in December 1899, unprecedented British casualties having emerged from the battles of Magersfontein, Stormberg and Colenso. In all, the Princess of Wales made three voyages to South Africa and on each occasion that she berthed back at Southampton the Princess of Wales made private visits to the ship to meet the nursing staff and the sick and wounded. And the first such occasion was in February 1900, when she was cheered into port by nearly 500 men about to depart for South Africa in the Goorkha. The Times once more covered events in detail. ‘Then away to the Empress Dock close to the embarkation office where the Princess of Wales, formerly the Midnight Sun, was being slowly warped up to the quayside. Her bulwarks were lined with as healthy looking a lot of men in blue uniform as ever I saw, but one imagined that below there must be many worse cases. But it was comforting to find on asking Major Morgan, who was the R.A.M.C. surgeon in charge, that, as a matter of fact, there was only one man out of the 174 who was not on deck, and that he was carried on deck every day. In fact, the state in which the men arrived did every credit to Major Morgan and Miss Chadwick, the superintendent nursing sister, and to the nurses, female and male, who have been in charge of them. Of limbs lost there appeared to be but a small percentage, but of a sort of partial paralysis following upon a wound from a Mauser bullet there were a good many cases among these victims of Magersfontein and the Modder River .. ‘The Prince and Princess of Wales visited the officers, nursing staff and wounded men on board the ship the day after it had docked at Southampton, carrying out a ‘friendly inspection ‘of each and every ward, The Times’ correspondent reporting that ‘there is not one of the 176 men on board the Princess of Wales who cannot boast that the wife of the Prince of Wales has spoken to him words of comfort and encouragement.’ On 14 April 1900 the Princess of Wales left Southampton for Table Bay, Cape Town, where she worked as a floating hospital until returning home with more wounded and invalids that July - as was the case before, the Princess of Wales inspected the ship and met all of the 170 casualties and the nursing staff, Major Morgan and the Nursing Sisters being presented to the Princess as she arrived on board. So, too, on her return from her third and final trip in December 1900, when the Princess of Wales was introduced to two particularly bad cases: ‘The cases that aroused the deepest sympathy of Her Royal Highness were those of two men named Stoney, of the Liverpool Regiment, and Dyer, of the Scots Guards. Stoney was wounded in eight places, most of the bullets having been fired into him after he had been knocked down; while Dyer was shot through the head and paralysed in both legs and one arm.’ Moreover, The Times report continues: ‘Before leaving the ship she presented the four nursing sisters Ð Misses Chadwick, Brebner, Hogarth, and Spooner Ð with a souvenir brooch. The brooch consists of a white enamel cross surmounted by a gold crown, and the front of the cross bears the initial ‘A’ in gold.’ In the course of this visit, the Princess was presented with an official rec

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1274639 item(s)/page