Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare Great War Al Valore Militare group of five awarded to Paymaster Commander W. P. Rainier, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (Asst. Payr., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Payr. S. Lt., R.N.); Jubilee 1935, privately engraved ‘Payr. Comdr. W. P. Rainier, R.N.’; Italian Al Valore Militare, bronze, unnamed, mounted as worn, one or two edge bruises, very fine or better (5) £400-500

Italian Al Valore Militare, Bronze London Gazette 17 November 1917.

William Peter Rainier, the scion of a distinguished naval family, was born in October 1888 and entered the Royal Navy as an Acting Clerk in January 1906. Advanced to Assistant Paymaster in December 1909, the outbreak of hostilities found him employed at the Malta base Egmont, but additional for duty in the cruiser H.M.S. Blenheim, in which capacity he served until November 1917, thereby witnessing action in the Dardanelles and elsewhere in the Mediterranean theatre of war. In the latter month he was gazetted for his Italian decoration, which no doubt stemmed from the recommendation of Captain Coode, who found him to be a most able officer and worthy of appointment as a Secretary to a Flag Officer. And so it transpired, Rainier joining the Staff of Rear-Admiral Bernard back in the U.K. at Portland, in which post he remained employed until the end of the War, gaining advancement to Paymaster Lieutenant-Commander in October 1919.

Sold with the recipient’s career photograph albums (5), covering the approximate period 1910-1930, and consequently a fine representation of the British Fleet at work in all corners of the globe (China Station, West Africa Station, etc.), including some splendid views of capital ships such as the King Edward VII and Malaya, but also, in an album dedicated to his time at Portland, 1918-19, approximately 70 “Seaplane Photographs” of assorted convoys, etc., an extraordinarily thorough record of the shore establishment itself, and its “Listening School” and related vessels (approximately 125 images, including buildings, W.R.N.S. staff, sporting events, etc.), right through to scenes from the surrender of the German Fleet; together with the “Journal of C. Rainier”, a naval ancestor, being his diary entries for the months of July-August 1823, 16pp.