Orders, Decorations and Medals

A M.B.E. awarded to Mr D. A. T. Lee, Foreign Office, for services in Addis Ababa during 1936

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Civil) Member’s 2nd type breast badge, silver, in Royal Mint case of issue, extremely fine £100-150

M.B.E. London Gazette 1 February 1937. ‘Donald Arthur Thomas Lee, Esq., employed at His Majesty’s Consulate-General at Addis Ababa’.

D.A.T. Lee was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Signals on 8 July 1940; a war substantive Lieutenant on 8 January 1942 and Temporary Captain on 20 August 1943.

Sold with M.B.E. bestowal document (mounted on card), named to ‘Donald Arthur Thomas Lee’ and dated 1 February 1937; a visiting card, named to ‘Mr Don Lee, M.B.E., Foreign Office, London’; a letter to the recipient from the British Consulate-General, Addis Ababa, dated 1 February 1937, informing him that the M.B.E. had been conferred upon him ‘in recognition of valuable services which you rendered during the recent disturbances in Addis Ababa’; a studio photograph of the recipient wearing his M.B.E., probably taken shortly after his investiture, and a War Office letter of thanks to ‘Captain D. A. T. Lee, M.B.E., Royal Corps of Signals, dated 31 July 1946, upon his release from military duty. Also with the book Eyewitness in Abyssinia, with Marshal Badoglio’s forces to Addis Ababa, by Herbert Matthews, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, 1937, ix, 320pp., hardbound, with torn dustcover, binding a little weak in places.