Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War D.S.O. group of six awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel K. R. N. Speir, Royal Engineers, late Derbyshire Imperial Yeomanry and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., lacking top suspension brooch; Queen’s South Africa 1899-19024 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, the last clasp a tailor’s copy (Lieut. K. Speir. 8 Co. 4/Impl. Yeo.); 1914-15 Star (Capt. K. R. N. Speir.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. K. R. N. Speir.); Legion of Honour, Chevalier’s breast badge, silver, silver-gilt and enamels, mounted as worn, very fine (6) £1200-1400

D.S.O. London Gazette 3 June 1918.

M.I.D. London Gazette 18 May 1917 and 21 May 1918.

Kenneth Robert Napier Spier was born on 1 April 1877, and was educated at Radley and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He served as a Lieutenant (Ex Private No. 5100) with the 8th (Derbyshire) Company, 4th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa, and was taken prisoner at Hoopstad on 23 October 1900, later released. At the outbreak of the war in 1914, Speir was a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve but transferred to the Army in November 1914 and went to France as a Captain R.E. (Railway Transport Officer) on 15 December 1914. He ended the war as a temporary Lieutenant Colonel and was awarded the Legion of Honour, 5th Class. He died on 1 April 1957.