Orders, Decorations and Medals

Royal Central Asian Society, Lawrence Memorial Medal, obverse: head of Lawrence of Arabia wearing Arabic head dress; reverse: skull and horns of the desert Ibex superimposed on a rayed sun, ‘Lawrence Memorial Medal; Cornua Levat Super Terras’ (Mildred Cable) 50mm., silver, in Royal Mint fitted case of issue, extremely fine £300-400

The Royal Central Asian Society’s Lawrence Memorial Medal in Silver was awarded in 1942 to the missionary,explorer and writer, Miss Mildred Cable. Presented with the medal in 1943, the Chairman of the Society said of her:

‘Then we come to Miss Mildred Cable, the recipient of the medal for 1942. Miss Cable’s thrilling book, The Gobi Desert, tells you of all her adventures and those of her companions, the two Misses French, through their fifteen years’ sojourn in that desert land. It is true that explorers have traversed the desert, but nobody before has remained in the country for so long. has gained such a great knowledge of it, and has become so intimate with the inhabitants, by whom these three ladies were so justly loved. You can imagine their privations. You can imagine what it must have meant to live, as they did, under the most primitive conditions, and I would venture to suggest that they were only sustained by great determination and courage and true belief in their very high calling’.

To which Miss Cable replied:

‘Thank you very much. It is a very great honour to receive this medal. And particularly my friends and I are glad because it is a recognition, I believe, of the importance which we, as a country, place on the missionary work of the Church. We believe that this is the foundation on which happy relationships will come between the nations. It has been our delight for fifteen years to go up and down the Gobi Desert roads, and during those years we have met with many who are now rejoicing with us in the same belief, which we believe is the foundation of our national greatness. Thank you very much.’

Other recipients of the medal included Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) John Bagot Glubb -awarded in 1936 ‘for valuable services rendered by him while commanding the Levies in Iraq and the Desert Patrol of Transjordan for seventeen years’ and Major-General Orde Charles Wingate - awarded in 1943 ‘for his outstanding exploits against the Japanese’.

Alice Mildred Cable was born in Guildford on 21 February 1878. She was a Protestant Christian Missionary in China and served with the China Inland Mission. A trained Pharmacist, she joined the China Inland Mission in 1901. With Evangeline French whom she first met in 1901 and her sister, Francesca French, whom she met a few years later, the trio traversed the Gobi Desert and three regions nearby on their missionary work. The three were forced to leave China in 1936 and they retired to Dorset. In their retirement, Cable was much in demand as a public speaker and she and Francesca French wrote several books. Mildred Cable died in Dorset on 30 April 1952.

Sold with three books by Mildred Cable and Francesca French: The Gobi Desert; Through the Jade Gate; and The Book Which Demands a Verdict. With some copied research.