Orders, Decorations and Medals

A post-war C.B.E. group of six awarded to Lionel Powys-Jones, Chief Native Commissioner of Southern Rhodesia, late Rhodesia Regiment and King’s Royal Rifle Corps, in which latter regiment he was wounded as a young subaltern in the Great War

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. (Civil) Commander’s 2nd type neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut. L. Powys-Jones); Southern Rhodesia Medal for War Service 1939-45; Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953, surname officially corrected on the third, generally good very fine (6) £600-800

Ex A. A. Upfill-Brown collection.

C.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1954.

Lionel Powys-Jones was born in July 1894, the son of Llewellyn Powys-Jones, a Resident Magistrate in Bulawayo, and was educated at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, Victoria College, Jersey and Oriel College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Returning home to Rhodesia, he joined the Native Affairs Department, and in 1916 enlisted in the 2nd Battalion, Rhodesia Regiment. Subsequently commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, he was wounded in 1918.

Back in the service of the Native Affairs Department by 1919, he went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career, ultimately gaining appointment as Secretary for Native Affairs and Chief Native Commissioner in 1947.

He had, meanwhile, joined the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers, and attended assorted musketry courses in the period leading upto the 1939-45 War. Placed on the Reserve of Officers in March 1940, he served in a Concession Platoon from August of that year until April 1942, and is a verified recipient of the Southern Rhodesia Medal for War Service, the relevant roll stating, ‘Jones, L., X8610, Army’, which corresponds with his Q. & R. card in the archives in Harare; this award has accordingly been added to his Honours and Awards for display purposes.

Powys-Jones finally retired in 1954, in which year he was awarded his C.B.E. A keen tennis player who onetime represented Rhodesia, he settled in Somerset West, Cape Province, where he died in November 1966.