The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection

Family group:

A rare and interesting Russian intervention D.S.O., civil O.B.E. group of four awarded to Captain W. L. R. P. S. Blennerhassett, Intelligence Corps

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; British War Medal 1914-20 (Capt. W. L. Blennerhassett); France, Croix de Guerre 1914-1916, with bronze palm, together with a set of related dress miniature medals, including 1914 Star with clasp and Victory Medal with M.I.D. oak leaf, these mounted as worn, and an attractive ‘Order of the White Rose Revived 1929’ commemorative medal, silver-gilt and enamel, generally good very fine

A Second World War campaign service group of five attributed to Captain F. A. Blennerhassett, Royal Artillery and Royal Warwickshire Regiment

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1953, mounted as worn, together with a set of related dress miniature medals, good very fine or better (21) £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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D.S.O. London Gazette 21 January 1920:

‘For conspicuous gallantry near Siding on 11 June 1919, when doing intelligence duties. On the advance of the Russian troops being held up, he collected three men and led an advance under heavy fire, thereby assisting greatly in re-establishing the situation. As Intelligence Officer in charge of the forward area, he has rendered invaluable services in controlling an area of some 3,000 square miles.’

O.B.E. apparently ungazetted.


William Lewis Rowland Paul Sebastian Blennerhassett was born in October 1882, the third son of Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, Bt., and by profession was a member of the London Stock Exchange. Appointed a Local Temporary Honorary Lieutenant on the Special List in October 1914, he served in the Intelligence Corps out in France and Belgium until 1915, gaining a mention in despatches (London Gazette 17 February 1915). Such was the ad hoc manner in which the War Office assembled the “Intelligence Corps” at the outset of hostilities that its recruits came in all shapes and sizes - Blennerhasset is recorded as having reported for duty with his father’s sword and two spare shirts, and to have proved a hopeless motor-cyclist, writing off one of the unit’s Sunbeams after a journey that lasted just 50 yards.

Of his subsequent wartime movements little remains known, though he was graded as a Staff Captain in June 1916 and, according to his Times obituary from May 1952, ‘his abilities as a linguist were known to the Foreign Office, which employed him on financial business in northern Russia and Finland in 1919’. Here then the likely grounds for the award of his civil O.B.E., and probably for secretive work carried out after his duties as an Intelligence Officer. Interestingly, as also stated in his Times obituary, Blennerhassett ‘worked his experience of revolutionary Russia into material for two novels. The Red Shadow and The Dreamer, which were distinguished less for style or narrative than for their precise descriptions of scenes and events witnessed by the author.’


Francis Alfred Blennerhassett, who was born in July 1916, served as a Captain in the Royal Artillery and Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the 1939-45 War, prior to commencing a legal career. Appointed a Q.C. in 1965 and a Circuit Judge in 1978, he died in June 1993.