Four: Major R. H. Fitz Roy-Kelly, Royal Artillery, afterwards Royal Observer Corps
1914-15 Star (Capt. R. H. Fitz Roy, R.G.A.); British War and Victory Medals (Major R. H. Fitz Roy); Defence Medal 1939-45, together with two enamelled R.O.C. badges, good very fine (6) £150-200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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Robert Hope Fitz Roy-Kelly, who was born in September 1881, the son of Colonel Fitz Roy, late 47th Regiment, and was educated at Rugby and Coopers Hill College, was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in September 1902.

Stationed out in Hong Kong on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he returned to the U.K. and was embarked for France in May 1915, where he served in 13th Anti-Aircraft Section and in 519 (S) Battery, R.G.A. before being attached to 171 Siege Battery, 5th Army. In May 1917, however, Fitz Roy was found to have a heart murmur ‘due to active service conditions in France’, and he was invalided home, where he took up an appointment at the Ministry of Munitions.

Having then been placed on the Retired List in the rank of Major, he served as Head of the Hayling Island Post of the Royal Observer Corps in the 1939-45 War, while his wife, Stella, the daughter of the late Brigadier-General R. M. B. F. Kelly, C.B., D.S.O., served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (see following Lot). The Major, who was granted permission to change his name to Fitz Roy-Kelly, and bear the Arms of Kelly with his own family Arms by royal licence in January 1937 (The London Gazette refers), died in September 1952.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation and photographs, assorted badges and prize medals (7), an R.A. helmet plate, a whistle and Great War leather map case and leather writing case, the latter with original hand written note: ‘On Active Service: In the event of my death, I give the whole of my property and effects to my wife Stella Agnes Piercy Fitz Roy, (signed) Robert Hope Fitz Roy, Capt., R.G.A., 22 November 1915, B.E.F., France’.