Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria to include a Fine Collection of Napoleonic Medals

A military O.B.E. pair awarded to Captain T. A. Joyce, Special List and General Staff - who served in British Military Intelligence, M.I.2c. & M.I.3c.- a renowned Anthropologist at the British Museum


The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London (date mark faint); British War Medal 1914-20 (Capt. T. A. Joyce); together with a renamed Victory Medal 1914-19, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt. T. A. Joyce) mounted court style for wear, good very fine and better (3) £220-260

O.B.E. London Gazette 9 January 1918. ‘Captain Thomas Athol Joyce, General Staff, War Office.’

Captain Thomas Athol Joyce was appointed an Honorary Lieutenant 12 March 1916, Captain 20 February 1917 and relinquished his commission on 2 August 1919. Special qualifications: responsible for German Forces in the field from May 1916, he was able to ride and spoke and understood many languages. Military Intelligence Sections: firstly M.I.2(c) room 331 initially, then moved to M.I.3(c), these were originally set up to handle geographical information and M.I.3(c) would have been for Germany. For his wartime services he was ‘brought to the notice of the Secretary of State for War for valuable services in connection with the War’ (Ref. War Office Communique, 24 February 1917, and was awarded the O.B.E.
 
Thomas Athol Joyce was a renowned Anthropologist, born 4 August 1878 in Camden Town. The elder son of Thomas Heath Joyce, Freshford, South Hill, Bromley; Editor ‘Graphic’ and ‘Daily Graphic’. Dulwich College: Secretary of Photo Society 1894-5; V111 1896-7; Ath. Sp., High Jump 1897; Exhib; Left July 1897; 6th. Hertford College, Oxford University: Exhibition 1897; 2nd class Mods 1899; 2nd class Lit. Hum, 1901. In 1902 he was appointed to the staff of the British Museum in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography. In 1921, he was appointed Deputy Keeper of his department, and on its reorganisation was placed in charge of the Sub-Department of Ethnography in 1932. In his departmental work, he had specialised in the ethnography of the peoples of Africa and the antiquities of America. His three books on the archaeology of South America, Mexico and Central America, appearing between 1912 and 1916. Joyce was inevitably chosen to lead the expeditions sent by the British Museum to British Honduras in 1926 and succeeding years up to 1931, to excavate the ruined Mayan cities of that region. In addition to a large number of contributions to the publications of learned societies and the more serious of the journals devoted to the arts, Joyce was the author of the official guide to the ethnographical collections of the British Museum (1910). He held office as Honorary Secretary of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1903-13, for two terms as Vice-President, and then as President (1931-33), and was president of the Anthropological Section of the British Association. M.I.D. not confirmed.