Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second World War mine-laying operations O.B.E. group of six awarded to Temporary Commander (E.) F. E. Richardson, Royal Naval Reserve, and a long served Chief Engineer Officer of Alfred Holt & Co.

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge, silver-gilt; British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals 1914-18 (F. E. Richardson), official but late claims from the 1940s; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45, the last three with their original card forwarding box, good very fine or better (6) £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1942.

Frank Edwin Richardson, who was born at Rugby in 1891, joined Alfred Holt & Co. as an Assistant Engineer on the eve of the Great War. During the latter conflict he held appointments aboard the Anchises, Meleus, Laomedon and Memnon, and completed voyages to China, Japan, Russia, the U.S.A. and South America, and gained advancement to Third Engineer.

Remaining in the employ of Alfred Holt & Co. between the Wars, his appointments took him to the Straits, China and Japan, and he gained advancement to Chief Engineer Officer in April 1934. Then in August 1940, his ship - the Agamemnon - was requisitioned by the Admiralty for service as a minelayer, and Richardson appointed a Lieutenant-Commander (E.) in the Royal Naval Reserve. And it was in that capacity that he was awarded his O.B.E., following extensive mine-laying operations off Iceland. Removing to the escort carrier Trouncer in early 1944, his final wartime appointment was in H.M.S. Campania, in which ship he participated in a number of Arctic convoys between November 1944 and the War’s end.

Returning once more to the employ of Alfred Holt & Co., Richardson finally came ashore in November 1951, aged 60 years; sold with an extensive file of research.