Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Three: Driver Miss Henrietta M. Lister, later Mrs. Burrill-Robinson, Scottish Women’s Hospital and French Red Cross
British War and Victory Medals (H. M. Lister.); Serbia, Kingdom, Medal of Zeal, bronze-gilt; together with the related miniature awards, nearly extremely fine

Three: Captain W. R. Burrill-Robinson, Yorkshire Regiment, later Commandant, North Riding of Yorkshire Special Constabulary
Defence Medal, with named card box of issue, addressed to ‘Mr. Wm. R. Burrill-Robinson, “Elm House”, Redmire, Leyburn, Yorks N.R.’; Coronation 1953; Special Constabulary Long Service Medal (Comdr. William R. Burrill-Robinson), in named card box of issue, together with the related miniature awards, the Special Constabulary Medal additionally with a ‘Long Service 1953’ bar, nearly extremely fine (6) £500-700

Henrietta Mabel Burrill-Robinson, née Lister, the daughter of Dr. Charles Lister, was a member of a dancing troupe touring Bulgaria and Serbia at the outbreak of the Great War, where she performed under the stage-name of Laretta Listakova. She served during the Great War as a driver with Dr Elsie Inglis’ Unit (the Scottish Women’s Hospital) under the auspices of the French Red Cross in Salonika in the Balkan theatre of War from March to November 1918, and returned to London on the cessation of hostilities. In the 1920s she became a motor-racing enthusiast, regularly racing her Aston Martin at Brooklands, occasionally in a team with Jack Warner, the actor who would go onto star as P.C. George Dixon in the acclaimed TV series Dixon of Dock Green. She married the North Yorkshire squire William Robinson Burrill-Robinson in 1935.

William Robinson Burrill-Robinson was born William Robinson Burrill on 9 August 1884 and was educated at Charterhouse and Clare College, Cambridge. He assumed the surname Burrill-Robinson in 1908, and served during the Great War as a Captain in the 4th battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, without apparently going overseas. He married Miss Henrietta Lister in 1935, and then settled down to the life of a country squire, living at Elm House, near Leyburn in North Yorkshire, which had a large grouse moor- on 10 August 1938 The Times reported that his grouse were in excellent condition approaching the “Twelfth”. He served as Commandant of the North Riding of Yorkshire Special Constabulary, and was later Chairman of the North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. He died on 23 December 1962.

Sold together with a photographic image of the recipient about to embark upon a day’s shooting; and various other ephemera.