Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Victory Medal 1914-19 (S. O’Brien, F.A.N.Y.C.) very fine £60-80

Sicele O’Brien was born on 1 April 1887, daughter of Sir Timothy Carew O’Brien, 3rd Baronet (1861-1948). Sir ‘Tim’ O’Brien was a noted cricketer, playing for Oxford University, Middlesex, England and Ireland, 1884-1907. Sir Tim married Gundrered Annette Teresa de Trafford, daughter of Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 2nd Baronet, in 1885, by whom he had 10 children. His daughter served as an ambulance driver during the Great War, serving with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Corps. A pioneer aviatrix; in 1927 she was only the second woman to gain a ‘B’ (commercial) Licence. Supposedly her parents were against her taking flying lessons, and the first they heard about it was when they saw a newspaper report. In 1928 she lost a leg when she crashed onto a golf course in Mill Hill but nothing daunted, she continued to fly with an artificial limb, stating ‘It was worth it. One has to take risks for anything that is worth while.’ With Lady Heath she set a British altitude record of 13,400 feet in 1928. She was killed on 18 June 1931, aged 44 years, when her Blackburn Bluebird III G-AABF crashed when taking off at Hatfield.

With copied Aviator’s Licence, dated 20 October 1926.