Orders, Decorations and Medals

A most unusual K.C.B. group of five awarded to Engineer Vice-Admiral Sir George Goodwin, Royal Navy, Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet during the latter half of the Great War

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, K.C.B. (Civil) neck badge and breast star in silver-gilt and enamel; British War Medal (Eng. V. Adml. Sir G. G. Goodwin); U.S.A., Navy Distinguished Service Medal, gilt and enamel breast badge; Japan, Order of the Sacred Treasure, 4th class breast badge in silver gilt and enamel, with rosette; Russia, Order of St Stanislas, Grand Cross set of insignia by Edouard comprising sash badge in gold and enamels, and breast star in silver, gilt and enamels, with partial sash, the Russian badge with enamel chip to lower arm, the star lacking one letter of legend, otherwise good very fine (7) £1400-1600

George Goodwin Goodwin was born in 1862, and served his apprenticeship in H.M. Dockyard, Portsmouth, where he attended the Dockyard School. As a youth he passed highest in all England in the Cambridge Local Examinations and was offered a scholarship at the University. However, he preferred to enter the Navy and became an Assistant Engineer in 1882, taking what was then the equivalent of an honours course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

He held the positions of Chief Engineer at Chatham Dockyard, 1904; Deputy Engineer-in-Chief at the Admiralty, 1907, and Engineer-in-Chief of the Fleet from 1917 until his retirement in 1922. During his career Goodwin saw the transition from coal, Scotch boilers, and triple-expansion engines to oil fuel, water-tube boilers, and geared steam turbines; indeed he was responsible for the latter and more rapid part of that momentous development. He was Past President of the Institute of Metals and of the Institute of Marine Engineers; Hon Vice-President of the Institution of Naval Architects and Hon. Life Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Appointed C.B. in 1913 and K.C.B. in 1918, Admiral Goodwin died in 1945.