Orders, Decorations and Medals

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State (Lieut. S. O. Rowan-Hamilton, R. Irish Rifles) good very fine £180-220

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Brigadier Brian Parritt, C.B.E..

View
Collection

Sydney Orme Rowan-Hamilton was born in Newtownards, Co. Down in 1877, the son of Archibald Rowan-Hamilton J.P., High Sheriff of County Down. He was educated at the Oxford Military College and joined the 3rd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles in 1894. Gazetted to the West Indies Regiment in 1898; he joined the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles in 1900 and served with them in the Boer War. He resigned his commission in 1903 and two years later was called to the Bar. Appearing on the North-East Circuit, he was appointed a Revising Barrister for the Bradford and Keighley DIvisions of Yorkshire in 1913. A series of judicial appointments around the empire then followed, being appointed Puisne Judge, Leeward Islands, 1916; Stipendiary Magistrate, Gibraltar; President, Land Court, Palestine, 1927 and Chief Justice, Bermuda, 1927-39. He was Knighted in 1931 and in 1934 was appointed Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Great Britain, Canada and Bermuda. He wrote several plays: Mrs Ellison’s Answer, 1905; The Sentence; The Anarchists, 1907 and The Indiscretion of Mrs Carter, 1942; he was also a published author of several novels and poems - for some using the pen-name ‘Rowan Orme’. Sir Orme Rowan-Hamilton died on 4 November 1949.