Auction Catalogue

1 December 2004

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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

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Lot

№ 1298

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1 December 2004

Hammer Price:
£330

A M.B.E. group of five attributed to Acting Temporary Lieutenant Commander F. P. Usborne, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, latterly Secretary of the Royal Yachting Association

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Civil) Member’s 2nd type breast badge, in Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; War Medal 1939-45; Finland, Merit Cross of the Finnish Olympic Games 1952, 2nd Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with ribbon, in case, extremely fine (7)

£220-280

M.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1952. ‘Secretary, Yacht Racing Association, For services to the Festival of Britain.’

Francis Philip Usborne was born in 1906 at Thurgarten Priory, Nottingham. Later living at Busledon, Hampshire, he learned to sail on the Hamble. He received his higher education at Lancing and Clare College, Cambridge, where he became the founder member of the Oxford and Cambridge Sailing Society. After graduating he became a partner in a Southampton firm of fruit importers. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed a Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., with seniority dating from 14 December 1939. He served on minesweepers and auxiliary Atlantic escort trawlers. During 1943-45 he held the rank of Acting Temporary Lieutenant Commander, R.N.V.R., commanding an auxiliary trawler group. After the war he worked for the Dorset County Council. Being a long-time member of the Royal Yachting Association, he became secretary in 1946 and was awarded the M.B.E. in 1952 for his services to yachting, especially in connection with the Festival of Britain and the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. He retired in 1967 after 21 years service as secretary of the R.Y.A. Gordon Fairley in his book
Minute by Minute wrote of him, ‘So far as his own staff were concerned, Francis Usborne imposed a strict Naval discipline upon all - down to the most junior of junior typists. One of my earliest recollections when I joined the staff in 1967 to take over his work as he retired was being handed a highly polished handbell with instructions to ring it in the corridor at 10.50 and again at 11.00. These two clangorous interludes denoted the time to be spent drinking coffee.’

Sold with a paperback copy of
Minute by Minute - The Story of the Royal Yachting Association (1875-1982); a Coronation Regatta Medallion 1937, silver, in case of issue and a Cigarette Case, 85 x 115mm., silver with silver-gilt interior, hallmarks for Birmingham 1962, inscribed, ‘1938 F.P.U. 1963’. Finnish Order not confirmed.