Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Silver Cigarette Case, 115mm x 84mm, silver, hallmarks for Chester 1922, the top lid with engraved ‘Major H C B Wemyss DSO MC Sch of Sigs Uckfield 21/1/23’ within central roundel, the inside gilded, lacking internal elasticated fitments, otherwise good condition £40-£50

K.C.B. London Gazette 14 June 1945.

C.B. London Gazette 11 June 1940.

K.B.E. London Gazette 1 June 1941.

D.S.O. London Gazette 1 December 1914: Lieutenant Henry Colville Barclay Wemyss, Royal Engineers.
He has shown conspicuous efficiency in Staff duties, and in keeping up communication with a long line of front composed of many units where communication was often difficult. He has carried and delivered messages under fire with promptness and despatch.’

M.C. London Gazette 3 June 1916.

United States of America Legion of Merit, Commander London Gazette 23 June 1948.

Egyptian Order of the Nile, Third Class London Gazette 19 January 1920.

Henry Colville Barclay Wemyss was born in Mauritius on 26 April 1891, and was educated at Bedford Grammar School and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 23 December 1910, and was promoted Lieutenant on 21 December 1912; Captain on 23 December 1916; and Major on 3 June 1918. He served during the First World War on the Western Front, was wounded, was awarded an early Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross, and was five times Mention in Despatches (London Gazettes 1 December 1914, 17 February 1915, 13 July 1916, 21 July 1917 and 5 June 1917). In 1920 he transferred to the newly formed Royal Corps of Signals. In 1926 he became a General Staff Officer at the War Office and then in 1929 he was appointed an Instructor at the School of Signals at Catterick. He left the School of Signals in 1932 to become a General Staff Officer at Northern Command, York, and on 1 October 1935 he was promoted Colonel and appointed an Assistant Adjutant General at the War Office in London. After attending the Imperial Defence College between January 1938 and January 1939 he was promoted Major General and appointed as the Director of Mobilisation at the War Office on 9 January 1939. On 19 February 1940, he transferred to the post of Deputy Adjutant General to the Forces at the War Office, and on 10 June of that year he replaced General Robert Gordon-Finlayson as Adjutant General to the Forces, being promoted Acting Lieutenant General on assuming the role. The increasing importance of the role of the United States in the Second World War led to the British government establishing a military mission to Washington D.C., and on 3 June 1941 he was appointed the Head of the British Army Mission to Washington, a post he held until early 1942. Wemyss was subsequently appointed Military Secretary to the Secretary of State of War on 16 June 1942, and remained in this key post for the rest of the war. He was promoted General on 15 October 1945 and retired from Army service on 23 November 1946.