Auction Catalogue

5 April 2006

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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

Lot

№ 1003

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5 April 2006

Hammer Price:
£720

Three: Madame I. J. Lambillon-Delplanque, who served as an agent in the employ of the ‘Volunteer Service, attached to the British Army in France’

British War Medal 1914-20
(I. J. Lambillon-Delplanque); Belgian Croix de Guerre 1914-18; Belgian Medal de la Reine Elisabeth, good very fine (3) £150-200

Isabella Josephine Lambillon-Delplanque, a resident of the 47 Rue St. Charles, Chatelineau, is verified as having been awarded a single British War Medal 1914-20, being listed on a roll of ‘Agents - British, French and Belgian’ signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund A. Wallinger of British Intelligence (WO 329/2356 refers). Interestingly, a Rene Lambillon, of the same address at Chatelineau, is also listed on the roll, and described as ‘Sous chef de Station Ransart’. Whatever the exact nature of their work, we may be sure they took great risks in securing intelligence in enemy occupied territory, a contention supported by Wallinger’s estimation that 1200 such agents were arrested, serving an average of 14 months, while 200 others were shot or died in prison; see Michael Occleshaw’s Armour Against Fate, British Military Intelligence in the First World War for further details.