Orders, Decorations and Medals

The M.V.O., I.S.O. group of four awarded to Honorary Major Thomas Henry Wyatt, 37th Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps, and Civil Servant

Jubilee 1897, silver (Thomas Henry Wyatt, War Office, August 1897) privately engraved naming, some contact marks; The Royal Victorian Order, M.V.O., Member’s 4th Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, reverse officially numbered, ‘88’, enamel damage to blue central surround; The Imperial Service Order, E.VII.R., silver, gold and enamels, unnamed, gold, silver and enamel; Volunteer Officers’ Decoration, V.R., unnamed, hallmarks for London, 1892, complete with brooch bar, mounted court style for wear, very fine and better except where stated (4) £550-650

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Long Service Medals from the Collection formed by John Tamplin.

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Thomas Henry Wyatt was born in London on 19 October 1841, the son of Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807-80), the distinguished architect and onetime President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1870-73). Thomas Henry Wyatt was educated at King’s College, London. He entered the Civil Service in 1859 as a Temporary Clerk. He worked at the War Office, in the Quarter Master General’s Office until he retired in April 1903. He became 3rd Class Clerk in January 1862 and Senior Clerk in January 1892. In his time at the War Office, he was Confidential Clerk to the Q.M.G., May 1888-March 1893. He was appointed an Acting Principal in the Q.M.G’s. Branch in January 1900. In June 1900 he was appointed Secretary of the Army Railway Council. He retired on a pension on 1 April 1903.

Wyatt was also a keen and long serving member of the Volunteers, in which he served 21 years in the Middesex Rifle Volunteers. He originally joined the 37th (St. Giles’s and St. George’s, Bloomsbury Corps) in about 1862. He was appointed Quartermaster of the 37th Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps on 31 May 1873. On 15 May 1878 he resigned as Quartermaster, and on the same day was appointed a Captain in the same Corps. In 1881 the 37th Corps was retitled the 19th Corps, and it then formed part of the Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort’s Own). Captain Wyatt resigned his commission on 22 August 1883 and was granted the honorary rank of Major, being permitted to continue to wear the uniform of the Corps on his retirement. Captain and Honorary Major Wyatt was later awarded the V.D. (London Gazette 6 December 1892). At the time of the Coronation in 1902 he was apointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (M.V.O. 4th Class, London Gazette 22 August 1902), this awarded for his services at the War Office with regard to the Coronation Wyatt was also one of the first recipients of the I.S.O., being appointed a Companion (London Gazette 31 March 1903) as a Senior Clerk in the War Office.

Wyatt married in 1865 to Julia Lucy Mervyn, daughter of the Rev. Thomas William Wrench, Rector of S. Michael’s, Cornhill, E.C., by whom he had 7 sons and 4 daughters. Latterly living at Weston House, Weston Corbett, Hampshire. He was Church Warden of St. Lawrence, Weston Patrick and was for many years the Chairman of the National Benevolent Institution and was one of the founders of the Childrens’ Sanitorium for Phthisis at Holt, in Norfolk, of which he was the first Honorary Secretary. Honorary Major T. W. Wyatt, M.V.O., I.S.O., V.D., died on 21 September 1920, aged 79 years at Weston Patrick.

Sold with copied research and related modern photographs.