Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An original watercolour by Stanley Orton Bradshaw: “The Shape of Things to Come”, depicting a squadron of Hurricanes diving to the attack on manoeuvres in 1939, signed in full in red ink and dated ‘39, 49.5cm. by 34.5cm., framed and glazed, minor blemishes/foxing £600-800

Stanley Orton Bradshaw, who was born in 1903 and learned to fly at the London Aeroplane Club in 1926, worked as an aviation journalist for The Aeroplane. In the early stages of the War he served in the A.R.P. service at Stanmore, Middlesex but he was afterwards able to put his flying experience to good use with the Air Transport Auxiliary (A.T.A.) - being too old for service in the R.A.F. - and had flown around 70 different aircraft types by the end of hostilities. Returning to aviation journalism with an appointment as Editor of The Light Plane in 1947, Bradshaw became an enthusiastic lobbyist on behalf of civil flying clubs and a frequent visitor to air shows. Sadly, on just such an occasion in June 1950, he was killed in an accident while piloting a borrowed aircraft. He appears to have been a self-taught artist and to have painted largely as a hobby, but today his work is increasingly sought after.