The mounted group of miniatures worn by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Howard Kerr, K.C.V.O., C.M.G., O.B.E., 11th Hussars, Equerry to H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester, Royal Victorian Order, silver-gilt and enamels; Order of St Michael & St George, silver-gilt and enamels; Order of the British Empire, 1st type Officer’s (O.B.E.), Civil Division, on second type ribbon; British War and Victory Medals; Territorial Force War Medal; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; France & Germany Star; Defence & War Medals; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953; Belgium, Order of Leopold, 5th Class, with swords, silver and enamel; these fifteen mounted as worn, in Spink, London leather case; together with a Royal Canadian Humane Association Medal (2), bronze medal with ‘Bravery’ top suspension; another, obv. with engraved details, rev. engraved ‘Awarded to Howard Kerr, for Courage in the rescue of Effie Dunlop from drowning at Caribou Lake, July 1909’, generally good very fine, the last very scarce (17) £120-160

K.C.V.O. London Gazette 10 June 1948, Comptroller to the Duke of Gloucester; C.V.O. London Gazette 10 August 1942, Equerry to the Duke of Gloucester; M.V.O. IV London Gazette 10 May 1929, H.R.H’s Mission to Japan.

C.M.G. London Gazette 2 April 1935, on the occasion of the visit of H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester to Australia and New Zealand.

O.B.E. (Civil) London Gazette 1 January 1923.

Louis William Howard Kerr was born on 25 November 1894, son of Captain Walter Raleigh Kerr. He was educated at Lower Canada College, Montreal, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and enlisted in 1913 into King Edward’s Horse. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Cheshire Yeomanry in 1914, and transferred to the 11th Hussars in 1915 and joined the regiment in France in February 1916. He served with the 11th Hussars throughout the rest of the Great War and accompanied it to Egypt in 1919.

He was A.D.C. to Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, from 1921 to 1922. He was then appointed Equerry to H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester in 1924, and remained in the Duke’s service as Crown Equerry until 1946, as Comptroller until 1950, and as Extra Equerry until 1974. During this long period he served the Duke with outstanding devotion and accompanied him on the many journeys overseas during peace and war, including the Garter Mission to Japan in 1929, and his visit to Australasia in 1934-35. He was Personal Assistant to H.R.H. with the B.E.F. in France, 1939-40, and accompanied H.R.H. on visits to Gibraltar in 1941 and 1942; Chief of Staff to H.R.H. on tour of Middle East Forces and India and Ceylon in 1942, and was temporarily attached to U.S. Army in France, Belgium and Holland in 1944. He retired in 1950. Sir Howard Kerr died on 11 July 1977.