Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A post-War O.B.E. group of five awarded to Commander L. H. Butler, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge, silver-gilt; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Officers’ Decoration, E.II.R., with Second Award Clasp, all unnamed, mounted in a glass-fronted case, good very fine (lot) £400-£500

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, September 2010.

O.B.E. London Gazette 8 June 1968.

Lionel Harold Butler was a Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve, and held the degrees of M.Sc., Eng. (London); M.Sc., PhD. (Wales); and was a C. Eng. and F.I.Mech.E. He was Professor of Engineering at the University of Sierra Leone. Serving aboard the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Vengeance, 1947-48, he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. in 1956 and attained the rank of Commander in 1960. He retired from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1974, and latterly lived in Cardiff.

Sold with a substantial quantity of related items, including the recipient’s commission document appointing him Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., dated 17 May 1956; four Admiralty/ Ministry of Defence letters to the recipient; Royal Mint case of issue for the O.B.E.; large photograph of H.M.S. Vengeance; photograph of the recipient in uniform and wearing his medals; a number of ‘Mess Dinner’ menus; an Order of the British Empire Commemorative Plate, to mark the Order’s Diamond Jubilee 1917-77, with two booklets relating to the Order of the British Empire; 4 commemorative plates depicting aircraft of the Second World War, with accompanying documentation; the recipient’s Gieves, Ltd., Naval Telescope; and the recipient’s uniform, comprising dress jacket and trousers and dress forage cap and blazer.