Auction Catalogue

28 June 2000

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Regus Conference Centre  12 St James Square  London  SW1Y 4RB

Lot

№ 1162

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28 June 2000

Hammer Price:
£360

An unusual Post-War O.B.E. group of five to Mrs. E. C. Phillips, South African Red Cross (London Committee)

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) 2nd type; South Africa Medal for War Service 1939-45, silver, with Bronze Protea emblem (for King’s Commendation); Voluntary Medical Service Medal, with additional service bar (E. C. Phillips); France, Croix Rouge Français, in silver, the reverse inscribed ‘Madame Phillips’, with original top bar brooch; British Red Cross Society War Service Medal 1914-18; together with South African Red Cross Society ‘Honorary Life Member’ badge, in gilt metal and enamels, generally nearly extremely fine (6) £150-200

O.B.E. London Gazette 2 January 1950.

Mrs Eileen Cicely Phillips, née Mander, served as a Nurse at the Cambridge Red Cross Hospital at Ely, from October 1915 to August 1916 and also acted as a Motor Driver with the Norfolk Reserve from September 1918. During the Great War, she married a wealthy South African, F. R. Phillips, the youngest son of Sir Lionel Phillips. Remaining in London she became, during the Second World War, Madam Chairman of the London Committee of the South African Red Cross from January 1943, a post she held until 1963.

Subsequently elected an Honorary Life Member of both the British and South African Red Cross, she received her Voluntary Medical Service Medal from the South African Ambassador in London in 1961, and her O.B.E. in respect of services as Madam Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women.

Mrs Phillips’s father-in-law, Sir Lionel was a successful Jewish businessman and a Member of the South African Parliament. In 1896 he had been sentenced to death for his connection with the Jameson Raid. With the help of his partners, he raised and equipped the Imperial Light Horse and assisted with the formation of the City Imperial Volunteers. Sold with a file of copied research, including photographs of recipient.