Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. Including a superb collection of medals to the King’s German Legion, Police Medals from the Collection of John Tamplin and a small collection of medals to the Irish Guards

Three: Captain O. G. Hutchinson, Royal Tank Corps, late Army Cyclist Corps and Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and afterwards the right hand man and backer of John Logie Beard, designer of the television: it was Hutchinson’s face that was the first ever image to appear on a television screen

1914-15 Star (Lieut., A. Cyc. Corps); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.) good very fine or better (3) £350-400

Oliver George Hutchinson was born in Belfast in May 1891 and was educated at Belfast University. Successfully applying for a commission on the outbreak of hostilities, he appears to have served in both the Army Cyclist Corps and 6th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers over the next two or three years. Certainly he experienced active service of the most painful kind in Gallipoli, as evidenced by a subsequent statement of services that survives in the P.R.O.:

‘I had command of a sniping party at Gallipoli and was bitten by a scorpion in the neck whilst sniping. I was officially reported wounded but did not leave Gallipoli as I was well enough in two weeks to rejoin my regiment in the line. Shortly before the evacuation of Gallipoli I was sent to hospital in Egypt suffering from malaria and pleurisy. I took part in the landing in Suvla Bay and later on in the fight on Chocolate Hill, Hill 70, etc.’

Hutchinson afterwards transferred to the newly formed Tank Corps and joined his unit in France in July 1917, being wounded at the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November, when he was ‘shot by a wounded German Officer just as he got out of his tank. A revolver bullet struck him in the inner side of the left leg’. Evacuated to England later in the month, he did not return to active service for the remainder of the War, and nearly fell victim to the famous influenza epidemic of 1918. He was finally released in January 1919 and, according to his MIC entry, was issued with his campaign medals in 1926.

Shortly before the War, Hutchinson had served as a motor engineering apprentice at Argyll Motor Works in Glasgow, where he met a fellow student, John Logie Beard, the son of a Scottish minister. They became friends. Parted by the advent of hostilities, they did at some point meet up on active service, and Baird talked of his ambitions to create a system of relaying pictures through the air. Hutchinson, a talented mechanic in his own right, was fascinated by the idea and remained a loyal and enthusiastic supporter. But the two men were once more parted by the return to civilian life, both setting off to establish themselves in their respective fields. Then, a year or two later, they met by chance in the Strand. In their subsequent discussion Baird told Hutchinson that his original idea of relaying pictures was on the brink of success, but that he could find no backers. The latter secured the necessary support within a few weeks and now worked alongside Baird to bring the project to fruition. And so it was, in 1926, that the first ever television image was created, Hutchinson’s face being the chosen image to to appear on the screen. One of Baird’s associates later wrote of Hutchinson:

‘ ... When the story of television comes to be written the name of Oliver Hutchinson will be emblazoned therein as the one great power who translated the new science from a big idea into big business ... without the vision, the extraordinary energy, the intense belief and thorough going business mind of this man Hutchinson, television in Europe - certainly in England - would not have advanced to the position it occupies today ...’

See Lot 1296 for his brother’s awards.