Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Royal Engineers Armstrong Memorial Prize Medal 1902, by F. Bowcher, obverse: bust of Armstrong facing left, ‘Col. R. Y. Armstrong, C.B., Royal Engineers’; reverse: a hand thrust upwards from a mural crown grasping winged thunderbolts and lightning, ‘Armstrong Memorial Prize’ (Second Lieutenant J. C. R. Fitzgerald-Lombard, R.E. 1924) 57mm., silver, good very fine £80-100

James Cotter Roger Fitzgerald-Lombard was born in 1905 and educated at Cheltenham College, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and Clare College, Cambridge. Awarded the Armstrong Memorial Prize Medal in 1924. Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1925 and promoted to Lieutenant in 1927 and Captain in 1936. Served in India, 1936-37; was Staff Captain, China, 1937-39; Staff Captain, Hong Kong, 1939. During the war he served in France, 1939-40; Iceland, 1940-41; and France and Belgium, 1944. With HQ 21 Group, Palestine, 1946-47 and then served in East Africa, 1947-49. Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1949. Was Commander, Royal Engineers, Sussex and Surrey, 1950-51. He retired with the honorary rank of Colonel in 1951. He died in 1981.