Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A post-war O.B.E. group of eight awarded to Chief Engineer Officer G. W. Bain, Merchant Navy, late Royal Naval Reserve

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge, silver-gilt, in its Royal Mint case of issue; British War Medal 1914-20 (Ch. Eng. G. W. Bain, R.N.R,); Mercantile Marine War Medal 1914-18 (George W. Bain); Victory Medal 1914-19 (Ch. Eng. G. W. Bain, R.N.R.), in their card boxes of issue; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Pacific Star; War Medal 1939-45, good very fine and better (8) £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1955.

George Watson Bain, who was born in Lanark, Scotland in 1863, was serving as 3rd Engineer aboard the Cunard steamship Pavonia on the Liverpool-Boston service, when she suffered damage during a severe gale on 3 February 1899 - damage that caused her boilers to be dislodged from their mountings. With a complete loss of power the ship drifted helplessly for 11 days until she was taken in tow by the Wolfiston who brought her to the sheltered waters of the Azores. Bain, in common with other shipmates, was awarded the Lloyd’s Medal for Meritorious Service, in bronze. And, shortly afterwards, he added the Transport Medal to this accolade for the Pavonia’s troopship work during the Boer War.

At the outbreak of the Great War, Bain was serving as Chief Engineer in the Cunard liner Laconia, which ship was swiftly was taken up for service with the Royal Navy as an armed merchant cruiser. Staying with the ship, Bain was commissioned a Temporary Engineer Lieutenant in the R.N.R. on 12 November 1914 and, once her conversion was completed, departed for the coast of German East Africa where she was used as the H.Q. ship for the operations against the German light cruiser Königsberg which had become bottled up in the Rufiji River. Bain’s R.N.R. commission was terminated in the summer of 1916, when he returned to the Mercantile Marine.

Remaining in the service of the Cunard-White Star Line between the Wars, he served for most of the 1939-45 War in the S.S. Pasteur, which ship was largely employed as a troopship on the Atlantic run. He finally came ashore in January 1956, following two or three years service as Chief Engineer Officer of the Mauretania; sold with a file of research.

N.B.
Bain’s missing Transport Medal for South Africa 1899-1902, 1914-15 Star, and Lloyd’s Medal for Meritorious Service, in bronze, were sold in these Rooms on 23 September 2011 (Lot 412).