An O.B.E. group of three awarded to Mr F. E. M. Beatley, General Manager of the Railway, Sierra Leone

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge; Jubilee 1935 (J. E. M. Beatley, Sierra Leone Railway); Coronation 1937, extremely fine (3) £120-140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to Civilians from the Collection of John Tamplin.

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Frank Edward Mamertus Beatley was born at Ledbury, Herefordshire, on 16 May 1882. Educated at Lucton Grammar School, Herefordshire, he was then employed on the Great Western Railway from May 1898 until May 1914. In that year he entered the Colonial Civil Service as Traffic Superintendent in the Railway Department of Mauritius, and also served in the Mauritius Volunteer Defence Force whilst there.

After nearly nine years in Mauritius, he was appointed in January 1925, Deputy Traffic Manager in the Railway in Sierra Leone, where he served until the Second World War. He received the Jubilee Medal in 1935, was elected a Member of the Institute of Transport in May 1936, and appointed an O.B.E. in February 1937. In the same year he received the Coronation Medal, at which time he was General Manager of the Railway. He returned to England just before the outbreak of war and was appointed Chief Divisional Petroleum Officer of the Petrol Department. It seems that he died in about 1961, but there is no trace of a Will in Somerset House. Sold with a portrait photograph in Colonial Service uniform with medals, two other group photographs, his Colonial Service cap badge, and Certificate of Membership of the Institute of Transport.