Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Commission Document appointing William Watts Ratcliff a Second Lieutenant in the Land Forces, dated 3 August 1916; together with a Lord Lieutenant’s Commission Document appointing William Watts Ratcliff a Captain in the Cadet Force of the County of Surrey, dated 10 March 1916; and the recipient’s named certificate for the Coronation Medal 1953, good condition

Order of St. John of Jerusalem Illuminated Scroll appointing Lieut.-Colonel Claude Bowes Palmer, C.B.E. a Knight of Justice, dated 19 May 1922, complete with appended seal, this slightly cracked, in metal scroll holder, good condition

Order of St. John of Jerusalem Illuminated Scroll appointing Marian, Mrs. Palmer a Lady of Grace, dated 27 October 1916, complete with appended seal, this cracked in places, in metal scroll holder, good condition

Memorial Scroll ‘Cpl. Oswald Dobson Royal Field Artillery’, in scroll tube addressed to ‘Mr. E. Dobson, 131 St. Jiles Road, Derby’, with Buckingham Palace enclosure; together with the recipient’s Mentioned in Despatches Certificate, dated 30 November 1915, good condition £100-140

William Watts Ratcliff served with the 4th Southwark Cadet Battalion, Church Lads Brigade, before receiving a Temporary Commission in the Royal Engineers. He served during the Great War and was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 4 July 1919).

Sold together with various letters relating to the recipient and other documentation.

Claude Bowes Palmer was born in London on 29 March 1868, the fifth son of Sir Charles Palmer, Bt., M.P., and was educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Mining Academy, Freiberg, Saxony. He served during the Great War as County Director of the Durham Voluntary Aid Detachment and as a Commissioner of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, and was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918. In later life he served as a Deputy Lieutenant and a Justice of the Peace for County Durham, and was appointed an Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army. He died on 7 April 1949.

Marian Palmer, the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel C. B. Palmer, served during the Great War, and was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class and the Medal of the Belgian Order of Elisabeth, and was Mentioned in Despatches.

Oswald Harry Dobson was born in 1893 in Broadstairs, Kent, and served with the North Midland Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (Territorial Force) and “D” Battery, 232nd Brigade during the Great War. Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 30 November 1915), he was killed in action on the Western Front on 12 October 1917, and is buried in Passchendaele New British Cemetery, Belgium.


Sold together with various other documents and ephemera, including a Parchment Certificate of Discharge and other documents to Charles Lumley, Sherwood Foresters; and an Officer’s Record of Service Book to Frank Edward Womersley.