Auction Catalogue

19 September 2003

Starting at 11:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 1240

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19 September 2003

Hammer Price:
£260

A Great War O.B.E. group of three to Kathleen Alice, Lady Raleigh, formerly Mrs Cuthbert, British Red Cross Society
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 1st type badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1917, mounted on a Lady’s bow, with 2nd type ribbon’ Defence; Voluntary Medical Service Medal, 6 bars (The Lady Rayleigh), mounted as worn, good very fine and better (3) £140-180

Ex Flatow Collection, Spink 25 November 1998, lot 1222.

O.B.E.
London Gazette 7 January 1918.

The Lady Rayleigh was born Kathleen Alice Straker on 25 January 1886. After the death of her first husband, Captain J. H. Cuthbert, D.S.O., Scots Guards who was killed in action on 27 September 1915, she married Robert John, 4th Baron Rayleigh in 1920. During the Great War she was Assistant County Director of the B.R.C.S. for Northumberland as well as the President and Secretary of the Corbridge Branch. For her services with the B.R.C.S. during the war she was awarded the O.B.E. During the Second World War her work with the B.R.C.S. continued, serving both on the Northumberland and Essex County Committees. She was made an Honorary Life Member of the Society in April 1946 and received the last bar to her V.M.S. Medal in 1954, having first enrolled into the Red Cross in 1909. Sold with copied research details.