Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The C.M.G., C.B.E., M.V.O. group of ten awarded to Brevet Colonel F. V. Willey, Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers), 2nd Baron Barnby

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. (Military) Commander’s 1st type neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; Royal Victorian Order, M.V.O. Member’s 4th Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, rev. officially numbered ‘690’; 1914-15 Star (Major, Sher. Rang.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Major); Jubilee 1935; Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1919, complete with top bar, these last six mounted as worn; Jubilee 1977; France, Third Republic, Legion of Honour, 5th Class breast badge, silver, silver-gilt and enamel, good very fine and better (10) £1200-1500

Francis Vernon Willey was born in Bradford on 29 September 1884, the eldest son of Francis Willey, afterwards the 1st Baron Barnby. He was educated at Eton, 1898-1903 (Philip Williams House) and Magdalene College, Oxford where he graduated with a B.A. in Jurisprudence in 1906 and gained a M.A. in 1908. In the Great War, as a Major in the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers) he entered the Egypt theatre of war on 27 April 1915 and went on to serve in Gallipoli. In June 1916 he was recalled as Assistant Director of Ordnance Stores and Controller of Wool Supplies under the War Department. For his wartime services he was mentioned in despatches and awarded the C.M.G. (1918), C.B.E. (1919) and M.V.O. (1918). Postwar he was Conservative and Unionist Member of Parliament for Bradford South, December 1918-1922. Appointed a Lieutenant-Colonel, he commanded the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry, 1920-28 and received the Brevet of Colonel in 1924. He was a member of the Surplus Government Property Disposals Board, 1918-21, member of the Central Electricity Board, 1927-46 and a member of the Overseas Settlement Board, from1937. He succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Barnby in 1929. He was sometime President of the C.B.I.; a Director of Lloyds Bank Ltd., Commercial Union Assurance Co. Ltd., Francis Willey & Co. (Woolmerchants), and several other companies; was President of the Textile Institute, 1961-62; Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Woolman and Master of Fox Hounds, Blankney Hunt, Lincolnshire, 1919-33. Baron Barnby received an Honorary Doctorate of Technology from Bradford University in 1968. He died without an heir to the title on 30 April 1982.

Sold with original bestowal documents (3) for the M.V.O. 4th Class, awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Vernon Willey, C.M.G., Nottinghamshire Regiment (Territorial Force); the Jubilee 1977, named to ‘The Lord Barnby, C.M.G., C.B.E., M.V.O., T.D.’ and the Legion of Honour, dated 24 September 1927 and named to Colonel Francis Vernon Willey as a Director of Francis & Co. Ltd, Bradford. Also with an original diploma from the Institut Historique & Héraldique de France, dated 15 September 1933.