Special Collections

Sold between 21 September & 27 June 2007

2 parts

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A Collection of Awards to the R.F.C. and R.A.F. formed by Wing Commander Bill Traynor

Wing Commander Bill Traynor, MA (Cantab.)

Lot

№ 147

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27 June 2007

Hammer Price:
£880

Seven: Wing Commander the Rev. J. R. Brown, Auxiliary Air Force, late Royal Scots and Royal Air Force

1914-15 Star
(2 Lieut., R. Scots); British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.); Defence and War Medals, privately inscribed, ‘Padre J. R. Brown, R.A.F.’; Coronation 1937; Air Efficiency Award, G.VI.R., 1st issue (Sqn. Ldr., A.A.F.), the earlier awards a little polished, otherwise generally very fine or better (7) £250-300

James Rossie Brown was born in July 1886, the son of the Rev. R. B. Brown, of Ardrossan, and was educated at the local academy, Glasgow High School and Glasgow University, in addition to ‘studying also at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin’. Having then been ordained, and appointed a Minister in Murrayfield, he volunteered to join the Special Reserve of Officers in March 1915, and was duly gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant to the 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, The Royal Scots - his application papers list earlier service in the 1st Lanark Volunteers, 5th Scottish Rifles and Galsgow University O.T.C., 1907-11. Shortly thereafter, Brown was attached to the 2nd Battalion, with whom he served in France until being evacuated home in February 1916, as a result of breaking his left fibula, an injury that brought his active service career to an end. In January 1917, he contacted the War Office to see whether he was entitled to wear the Silver War Badge, an entitlement that was duly confirmed that August when he was formally invalided and returned to his duties as a Minister at Murrayfield.

Brown joined No. 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron, A.A.F., as Padre in January 1931, and was still serving in that capacity with the equivalent rank of Squadron Leader on the outbreak of hostilities. As it transpired, the Squadron was heavily engaged against enemy raiders in the period 1939-40, when its pilots operated with notable success out of assorted airfields on the east coast of Scotland - thus a record of Padre Brown conducting the final military honours for two Luftwaffe airmen buried in Portobello Cemetery. Added to which, there is no reason to suppose he did not accompany, or at least visit, the Squadron after its move South for the Battle of Britain - certainly his fellow A.A.F. Padre in No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron, the Rev. Lewis Sutherland, did just that (see the Ron Penhall Collection, D.N.W., 22 September 2006, Lot 102). Be that as it may, Brown was released from active duties in 1942, the year in which No. 603 was ordered to Malta, and in the following year, having attained the equivalent rank of Wing Commander, he was awarded his Air Efficiency Award in 1943 (
A.M.O. No. 653 of that year refers).