Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important and unique inter-War C.B.E. (Civil), 1916 ‘Easter Rising - Defence of Beggars Bush Barracks’ D.S.O., Great War O.B.E. (Military) group of eight awarded to Major and Adjutant G. A. Harris, Dublin University Officer Training Corps, Territorial Force, who led his poorly armed column of above age military reservists - ‘The Gorgeous Wrecks’ - in a week long defence of Beggars Bush Barracks during the 1916 Easter Rising: arranging his veteran volunteers to the best possible advantage and by keeping up a constant fire on all surrounding houses occupied by the rebels, Harris prevented them from making an attack, and ‘bluffed them into thinking the garrison was much larger than it really was.’

Sold with an important archive of related material including the recipient’s unpublished diary of the Defence, written during the siege on ‘Beggars Bush, Dublin’ headed writing paper.

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. (Civil) Commander’s 1st type neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with neck riband; Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top riband bar; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919; British War Medal 1914-20 (Major G. A. Harris.); Territorial Force War Medal 1914-19 (Major G. A. Harris); Coronation 1911, silver, unnamed as issued; Jubilee 1935, unnamed as issued; Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1919, with integral top riband bar, last seven mounted as worn, minor green enamel damage to wreath on DSO, otherwise nearly extremely fine (8) £8,000-£12,000

C.B.E. (Civil) London Gazette 3 June 1927: ‘Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Northern Ireland.’

D.S.O. London Gazette 24 January 1917:
General citation but awarded in connection with services rendered during the Sinn Fein Rebellion, Dublin, April 1916.

O.B.E. (Military) London Gazette 3 June 1919:
‘For valuable services rendered in connection with the War.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 25 January 1917: general citation but in connection with services rendered during the Sinn Fein Rebellion, Dublin, April 1916.

George Arthur Harris was born in 1879 at Longford, Ireland, into a family with successful business interests and long Ulster associations. He won a scholarship to Trinity College Dublin, where he gained a gold medal in mathematics, played rugby for the 1st XV and assisted in the foundation of the Dublin University Officers’ Training Corps before graduating via open competition to an appointment as a first-class clerk at the Admiralty in London in 1903. The following year he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Prince of Wales’s Own (Civil Service) Rifle Volunteer Corps but, having chosen to return to Dublin, in 1910 he was appointed an officer of the Dublin University Officer Training Corps. Appointed to the command of the Infantry Unit in 1911 and promoted to Major in February 1913, it was in this capacity that Harris was serving on the outbreak of war in 1914. Additionally appointed to the command of the 1st Dublin Battalion Volunteer Training Corps from August 1915, Harris was leading a party of these veteran volunteers on military manoeuvres in the Dublin Hills on 24 April 1916 when he received news that Sinn Fein had risen in Dublin.

Easter Rising
Following the armed insurrection of around 1800 Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army in Dublin on Monday 24 April 1916, the VTC were ordered to return to Beggars Bush Barracks at once. Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Browning, the senior officer present, split the volunteers into two columns placing the larger party under Harris. These part time reservists, many of them lawyers, doctors and other professional men were mostly above military age - the Irish Rugby Union also had its own contingent. Unofficially termed the ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’, they wore civilian clothes with an armband emblazoned ‘GR’ - Georgius Rex. As a Volunteer Force they had no ammunition and many of their rifles were dummies for training purposes only. Unarmed and militarily ineffective then, this body of men was led back by Harris who recorded his experiences over the following days in his contemporary personal diary of the Easter Rising written on Beggars Bush Dublin headed note paper.

Of the journey back to the Barracks, Harris notes:
‘I immediately collected them and marched back via Anglesea Road having a protective screen in front. All went well until I arrived at the corner of Lansdowne Road and Shelbourne Road where I heard from civilians that they heard that the Sinn Feiners were sniping at the Barracks. I sent on two motor cyclists for information and they brought back word from the Barracks that the road was fairly clear. So I ordered the GRs to go up in small parties of four or five. I went on horseback with the foremost parties. As I rode up Haddington Road several shots were fired at me and one man was hit at the Barrack Gate. All the rest of the party got in without further casualty. The wounded man was carried in by Elie and Stranthers of the VTC who displayed great gallantry. The wounded man (Clery) unfortunately died during the night.’ (Harris’ diary refers)

Meanwhile, Browning’s smaller party, taking a different route, had run into a rebel ambush at the corner of Haddington and Northumberland Road. Fourteen men were hit, five of them fatally. One of these casualties was Browning, mortally wounded at the head of the column. He was rushed into the Barracks where he died two days later.

Major Harris meanwhile had already arrived to find it garrisoned by around twenty seven men of the Catering Corps. He set about organising the defence of the barracks immediately:
‘On getting into Barracks I found that I was senior Officer and took over command. I discovered that there were only about 15 rifles in the Barracks with a lot of disabled and convalescent soldiers, in addition to women and children. The troops with me - about 80 - had only unserviceable rifles for which no ammunition was available. There were large stores of ammunition and it was of the utmost importance to hold the Barracks, as it formed the first link between the city and troops coming from England. I arranged the troops round the wall to the best possible advantage, and by keeping up a constant fire on all surrounding houses occupied by the rebels prevented them from making an attack, and bluffed them into thinking the garrison was much larger than it really was.’

Harris had all the bricked up portholes opened and strategically had the ammunition, food etc. stored in the central block which he proposed to hold as a final post. Sniping continued from houses all around:
‘During the night Colonel Sir Frederick Shaw arrived and took over command, but I was ordered by the Irish Command Headquarters to remain and assist him. The night passed wearily in expectation of attack. All next day we had constant sniping with several casualties. We had no doctor in the Barracks, and no medical appliances and several lives were lost that could possibly have been saved by proper treatment.’ (Harris’ memoir refers)

Provisions at the Barracks were lacking however:
’There was only sufficient food on the Monday for one day, so I put everyone on half rations.
I got onto Headquarters on the phone and they promised to let us have a motor armoured lorry sent in on Tuesday with bread and beef... In the meantime a party of volunteers had sallied out and under a heavy fire had commandeered three bread vans – the first proved to be empty, the second had a bag of flour and about a dozen cakes, but the third we found had about 60 loaves.
So we were saved for the time being.’

Tuesday night passed without event. But the following morning the first of the British reinforcements started to arrive:
‘Early on Wednesday morning about 4am I saw the transports coming into Kingstown and about 3pm on that day an advanced party of the 59th Division reached the Barracks and endeavoured to clear houses near the Barracks. After suffering severe casualties they, by means of bombs, they cleared a house at the corner of Haddington Road and Northumberland Road from which we had been subjected to heavy fire. To assist the attack we made a sortie to try and clear the railway line near Lansdown Road but were attacked in turn and driven back by a party of rebels from Ringsend, leaving one officer wounded and one Sergeant killed. About this time I was standing at a loop hole with another man watching for a sniper when a bullet came right through and took the other man in the shoulder.’

Harris lost another of his men - Hosford - to sniper fire that day but he succeeded in getting a doctor - Captain Beverley - into the Barracks and had the casualties dressed and evacuated.
On Thursday 27 April, the Volunteer Force were ordered to hold the rebels in the nearby Ringsend area, ‘so as to enable the arriving troops to push right into the city and for this purpose we were given a platoon of Sherwoods...with all anxiety over we started on Friday to assume offensive operations. We got over the wall and put a ring of sentries round a regular rabbit warren of small houses near the Barracks. Two fellows, apparently rebels, who tried to bolt were immediately shot and we had no more trouble from that quarter.’

Meanwhile fighting could be seen and heard throughout the city - ‘From the roof of the Barracks we could see great fires in the city.’

After a quiet Friday, Harris reveals in his diary: ‘A rumour came about that Pearce and many of the rebels were surrendering, that Kut had been relieved and that a naval engagement had been fought in the North Sea terminating in our favour. Pray God they are true.’

But fighting wasn’t quite over:
‘On Saturday we suffered much from hidden snipers, all our attention being directed to firing on Bolands Mill which was being shelled by the troops. We heard late in the evening that the main bodies of the enemy had surrendered, but apparently this had no effect on the Ringsend rebels who still continued to snipe at us from various quarters.’

And the next day:
‘On Sunday our snipers killed two of them at the Gas Works and cut the hand of another.
Early on Monday morning we received the welcome news that a company was working down the canal to co-operate with us in taking the railway and we got underway at once.
The rebels decamped and we secured their positions and left the Barracks clear. We found that they had occupied a row of houses running from the Barracks to the Railway. They had made holes in the walls and could go from one house to another and so on to the Railway where they constructed trenches facing both ways. It was from here that we had suffered such losses on the Wednesday. The owners of the shops around came along and offered us anything we wanted. I only asked for some bags of sweets for the kiddies in the Barracks, who had suffered badly from being cooped up in dark rooms without sufficient food. I must have looked a sight coming into Barracks, slime and mud from top to toe, with a revolver in the one hand and bags of sweets in my left arm.’

Harris was sent to Irish Command Headquarters to do Special Duty (Secret Service) on the Monday night. Up all night and again all day Tuesday, he broke down from want of sleep on the Tuesday night and was sent back to Trinity College Dublin to act as Company Commandant.

For his services in command of the initial defence of Beggars Bush Barracks and subsequently during the defence under Colonel Sir Frederick Shaw, Harris was mentioned in despatches and created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order. He was also named in Maxwell’s Sinn Fein Rebellion despatch which appeared in the London Gazette of 21 July 1916.
He was posted to Irish Command Headquarters as Staff Captain on 1 July 1916 and appointed Deputy Assistant Quarter Master General, Irish Command on 10 January 1917 and for this work on the Headquarters Staff in Dublin, Harris was granted the O.B.E. in 1919.

Post war
On the formation of the Government of Northern Ireland, Major Harris was one of the first officials to volunteer for service in the North, and on 1 December 1921 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs Northern Ireland, a position in which he served until he was promoted to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry in 1927. He was create a C.B.E. (Civil) for these services the same year. He died on 30 October 1935.

Sold together with the following important associated archive:

(i) Moira pattern Silver Cup presented to the recipient for his service in the suppression of the Easter Rising. By West & Son, inscribed, ‘Defence of T.C.D. Sinn Fein Rebellion. Easter 1916.’ and ‘Major G. A. Harris’, silver, hallmarks for Dublin 1913, approx. 123mm high (exc. handles), 156mm (inc. handles), 95mm diameter., good condition:
On Saturday 5 August 1916, in the Provost’s gardens of Trinity College, a presentation was made by the Citizens of Dublin to commemorate the gallant conduct of the Officers’ Training Corps during the Easter Rebellion. As a result of a public subscription, over £700 was raised which was expended on silver plate: Two large presentation cups were presented to the Commandant of the Officers Training Corps. Special Silver Cup Replicas were presented to Major Tate, Commandant; Major Harris, late Adjutant, Captain E. H. Alton, Officer Commanding Infantry; and Lieutenant C. L. Robinson, Adjutant. Smaller silver replica cups were presented to all ranks of the Corps and others who had participated in the work of the defence.

(ii) The recipient’s scrap and news cutting book containing a large quantity of important and interesting Easter Rising related ephemera and other personal documents, including the following:
a) Commission documents (2): for Civil Service Rifles, dated 7 October 1904 and Territorial Force, dated 28 May 1910.
b) Booklet entitled, ‘Sinn Fein Rebellion, 1916. A souvenir of presentations to the Officer Training Corps, Trinity College Dublin.’ containing much information regarding the role of the O.T.C. during the Easter Rising and a portrait photograph of the recipient in uniform.
c) The recipient’s personal diary of the Easter Rising, written contemporarily on ‘Beggars Bush, Dublin’ headed note paper, 6 pages. Together with another retrospective hand written account, 10 pages.
d) Typed report by the recipient on the shooting of members of the Veterans Corps by the Rebels, April 24 1916. The report dated 17 May 1916.
e) Letter, dated 23 December 1916, to The Secretary, War Office from Lieutenant-General Mahon, Commander in Chief, Forces in Ireland, recommending the recipient for appointment to D.A.Q.M.G. Irish Command and also bringing forward the recipient for special recognition for his services during the recent rebellion in Ireland.
f) D.S.O. and C.B.E. bestowal documents.
g) Mention in Despatches Certificate, Major G. A. Harris, Unattached List, Territorial Force (London Gazette 25 January 1917).
h) Letter to the recipient from the 8th Duke of Atholl, dated 5 May 1918, regarding the latter’s reasons for not returning to Ireland: ‘I have more or less got the boot, the Authorities and I having rather quarrelled over the interpretation of the word “honour”... In the meantime I have got to go to Scotland as High Commissioner.’

(iii) Photograph albums (2):
a) Entitled ‘”B” Co. D.U.O.T.C. - the pictorial record of “B” Company D.U.O.T.C. from the date of its formation 1st Jan. 1911.’ Containing many high quality captioned photographs of the Corps including group portraits of the first 12 classes of D.U.O.T.C.; a photograph entitled ‘Dance given by 10th Class Nov 12th 1915. Cafe Cairo.’ showing the interior of the cafe which is thought to have given rise to the ‘nom de guerre’ of the ‘Cairo Gang’; and a group photograph entitled ‘Citizens’ Presentation August 5th 1916. Defence of T.C.D.’ with silver cups on display.
b) Personal album containing a large quantity of captioned photographs. Many group portraits of Civil Service Rifles; scholars and rugby teams. Earliest image entitled ‘Scholars T.C.D. 1841,51,61,71,81,91,01. Trinity Monday 1901.’

(iv) Framed pencil sketch portrait of the recipient by Frank Leah, dated 1921, entitled ‘The Major’. 32cm x 58cm.

(v) The recipient’s miniature awards, mounted as worn.

(vi) Trinity College Dublin bronze medal (replica of gold medal awarded to Harris), the obverse Elizabeth I with the words ‘Coll ss et individ trin reg Elizabethe juxta dubl 1591’; the reverse bearing the coat of arms of T.C.D. with the engraved words ‘Scientus Mathematicis Feliciter Excultis. Arthur George Harris. 1902.’ The edge inscribed ‘Replica of gold medal freely given in the Great War 1914-1919’, contained in one remaining half of fitted case of issue, extremely fine.

(vii) Badges (4): D.U.O.T.C. bronze cap badge with university coat of arms; D.U.O.T.C. bronze lapel badge, grenade style; D.U.O.T.C. 1910 metal and enamel pin badge; Belfast Naturalists Field Club Est. 1863 bronze pin badge.

(viii) Three original contemporary newspapers, comprising Weekly Irish Times, 29 April 1916; The Daily Mirror, 3 May 1916; and The Daily Mirror, 4 May 1916.

Sold also with the following Family Medals:

Five: Pilot Officer J. C. Harris, Royal Air Force, who was Mentioned in Despatches for services in North Africa during the Second World War and was killed in action when his Lancaster exploded over the target area on a raid to Wiesbaden on 2 February 1945
1939-45 Star; Africa Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, with M.I.D. oak leaf, with named Air Council enclosure (Pilot Officer J. C. Harris) and medal entitlement ticker tape, nearly extremely fine

James Carnegie Harris was the youngest son of Major G. A. Harris, C.B.E., D.S.O., former Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs and was educated at Campbell College. He joined the R.A.F. shortly after the outbreak of war and went to the Middle East in 1940. ‘He served for over three years in North Africa and accompanied the 8th Army on every advance and retreat’ (newspaper cutting with recipient’s fathers medals refers). He was Mentioned in Despatches in the King’s Birthday Honours in 1943 (London Gazette 2 June 1943) and Commissioned Pilot Officer on probation (emergency) on 1 October 1944 in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve General Duties Branch. He was killed in action, aged 27, on 2 February 1945 when his Lancaster X of 428 (R.C.A.F.) Squadron, piloted by Flight Lieutenant D. E. Berry A.F.C., R.C.A.F., exploded over the Wiesbaden target area. Harris and all but one crew member were killed and are buried in Dürnbach War Cemetery. The entire crew were commissioned officers and with the exception of Harris were serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Most, including, Harris were on or approaching their 30th operation and as such were nearing the end of their tour of duty.

Sold together with a framed photograph, 126mm x 178mm, of the recipient in R.A.F. N.C.O.’s uniform with Flight Engineer insignia, Africa Star riband and M.I.D. oak leaf emblem. Newspaper articles relating to the recipient are pasted into a cuttings album with the lot (see item (ii) above).


Three: Captain G. B. Harris, Royal Artillery
Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1953, unnamed as issued, mounted as worn; together with the recipient’s related riband bar, as worn, and a Queen’s University of Belfast McKane Medal for Jurisprudence and Political Economy, the reverse officially inscribed ‘George Boyd Harris 1931’, in fitted case of issue, good very fine and better

George Boyd Harris, older brother of the above, was educated at Campbell College and Queen’s University Belfast where he headed the list in the final examinations of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. Whilst pursuing a career in accountancy between the wars he was a member of Lodge XL, Belfast and also served as Assistant Secretary, Diocesan Council of Down and Connor and Dromore, being appointed Diocesan Secretary in 1934. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 10 October 1939 and served throughout the Second World War, advancing to Captain. He retired as Diocesan Secretary in 1971.

Ephemera relating to the recipient including his original Coronation Medal certificate in the name ‘Captain George Boyd Harris’ is pasted into a cuttings album with the lot (see item ii above).