Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The mounted group of eleven miniature medals worn by Major The Lord Rowallan, K.T., K.B.E., M.C., T.D., Grenadier Guards, late Ayrshire Yeomanry, Chief Scout of the British Commonwealth and Empire 1945-59, Governor of Tasmania 1959-63

The Most Excellent Order of The British Empire (Civil) silver-gilt and enamels; Military Cross, G.V.R.; Order of St John of Jerusalem, silver and enamels; 1914-15 Star; British War and Victory Medals; 1939-45 Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1953; Efficiency Decoration, G.VI.R., 1st issue, Territorial, very fine (11) £200-£300

M.C. London Gazette 22 June 1918: Lt. the Hon. Thomas Geoffrey [sic] Polson Corbett, G. Gds., Spec. Res.

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. During a strong enemy attack a party of about fifty of the enemy succeeded in entering the front line. In conjunction with a frontal bombing attack he led a party over the open and attacked the enemy from the rear, with the result that the enemy were driven back, leaving nineteen of their dead in the trench. Later, under very heavy fire, and in full view of the enemy, he dug out some men who had been buried by enemy trench-mortar fire. He showed magnificent courage and resource.’

Thomas Godfrey Polson Corbett was born at Hans Place, Chelsea, London, on 19 December 1895, and was educated at Eton. The First World War broke out when he was 18 and he went straight from school to the Army, serving with the Ayrshire Yeomanry at Gallipoli from late September 1915, and afterwards in Egypt and Palestine. After the second battle of Gaza, he was transferred to the Grenadier Guards, who he joined on the Western Front. On 30 March 1918, near Boyelles, France, he was badly wounded in his left leg when, under 'heavy fire and in full view of the enemy', he dug out wounded soldiers. For his deeds he was awarded the Military Cross. He uncomplainingly endured pain in his leg for the rest of his life.

The injury interrupted his military career. In 1933, he succeeded to his father's peerage. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Territorial Army was being expanded and Lord Rowallan was asked to raise a new battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers which he trained on Scout lines and took to France in April 1940. At Dunkirk, he extricated his men and arms and brought them off from St Valery with the remnants of the 51st Division. Back in Scotland he was given command of a Young Soldiers' Battalion and later he was made responsible for training potential officers.

Lord Rowallan joined the Scout Movement in 1922 as a District Commissioner. In 1944, he became Scottish Headquarters Commissioner for the training of Scout Leaders and in the following year was appointed Chief Scout of the Commonwealth and Empire. Appointed K.B.E. in 1951 and a Knight of the Thistle in 1957, he was awarded the honorary degree of LL.D. by the universities of McGill, Canada (1948), Glasgow, Scotland (1952), and Birmingham, England (1957). Soon after his retirement as Chief Scout in 1959, Lord Rowallan was appointed Governor of Tasmania, holding this post until he retired in 1963 to his home at Rowallan Castle, Kilmarnock. He was also a Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. In 1976 he published his autobiography, Rowallan, in Edinburgh. He died on 30 November 1977 at Glasgow, survived by his daughter and four of his five sons; his other son, John, a member of the Grenadier Guards, had been killed in action in Europe in 1944.

See Lot 12 for the recipient’s full size awards.