Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Captain C. P. O’Brien-Butler, Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 5th Royal Irish Lancers, who died of wounds in November 1914: an accomplished horseman, he rode in the Grand National on several occasions

1914 Star, with clasp (Capt., R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.), with M.I.D. oak leaf; Delhi Durbar 1911, privately engraved, ‘Capt. C. P. O’Brien-Butler, R.A.M.C., Delhi, 12 Dec. 1911’, all in their original card boxes of issue, the Great War awards complete with original War Office registered envelopes and related letters, addressed to the recipient’s widow, virtually as issued (4) £1200-1500

Charles Paget O’Brien-Butler was born in July 1881, the son of Major P. O’Brien-Butler, 60th Rifles, and the great-great-grandson of Edmund Butler, the 17th Baron Dunboyne. Educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, he obtained the diplomas of L.R.C.P. and S.I. in 1905, and was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in July 1907. Posted to India, he was advanced to Captain and received the Delhi Durbar Medal in 1911, one of 12 such awards to R.A.M.C. officers.

He was also an accomplished horseman, rode for H.M. King Edward VII and won races for many other well-known owners in England, Ireland, India and on the Continent:

Though a very good all-round sportsman, he was specially known for his marked ability across country, and won many important races, including the Grand Military Steeplechase and the Emperor of Austria’s Cup in the Pressburg Steeplechase. His ambition was to win the Grand National, but though he rode in the race several times, he never had the good fortune to win it’ (British Medical Journal obituary refers).

He departed for France in August 1914, attached to the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, and was mentioned in Sir John French’s despatch of 8 October 1914. In the following month, on the 1st, he was ‘shot down by maxim gun fire when going across an open space to help some wounded comrades’, and died of his wounds shortly afterwards.

O’Brien-Butler, who left a widow and a son, was buried in the Bailleul Communal Cemetery.