Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Cardiff Teachers’ Association Past President’s Medal awarded to Viscount Tonypandy, Speaker of the House of Commons

Cardiff Teachers’ Association Past President’s Medal, silver-gilt and enamel, the reverse engraved ‘T. George Thomas 1941-1942’; together with a City of Liverpool Heritage Award Medal, gilt, the reverse engraved ‘Honorary Companion the Rt. Hon George Thomas M.P. 11.6.82’, good very fine (2) £80-100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Members of the Nobility and The Royal Household.

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Thomas George Thomas, 1st Viscount Tonypandy, was born in Port Talbot, Wales, on 29 January 1909, and educated at Tonypandy Grammar School and University College Southampton. After working as a schoolmaster in both London and Cardiff, he was elected to the House of Commons as Labour Member of Parliament for Cardiff Central in 1945, and in 1950 was returned for the new seat of Cardiff West, a seat he retained until his retirement from the Commons in 1983. He served as Secretary of State for Wales in Harold Wilson’s government from 1968-70, and was elected Speaker of the House of Commons on 3 February 1976, in which role the first broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings brought him unprecedented public attention, with his Welsh cries of “Order! Order!” becoming familiar to a generation of Britons. He retired as Speaker on 10 June 1983, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Tonypandy (a viscountcy being the traditional honour for retiring Speakers for over 200 years). A devout Methodist, and a former Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, he never married, and died in Cardiff on 22 September 1997, heirless.