The AA Upfill-Brown Collection

A group of three awarded to Mrs. Nellie Romilly, nee Hozier, Winston Churchill'sSister-in-law and Secretary to Angela Manners's private nursing unit in Belgium

1914BRITISH WAR and VICTORY MEDALS (N. Romilly); Greece, ORDER OF THE REDEEMER, 5th class, breast badge in silver and enamel, the centres in gold and enamel, some damage to all arms, otherwise nearly very fine (3)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The AA Upfill-Brown Collection.

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Miss Nellie Hozier was officially the daughter of Lady Henrietta Blanche Hozier and Sir Henry Hozier. It is well known however that Lady Blanche had several love affairs from which emerged her four children. The two eldest daughters, Kitty and Clementine (later to marry Winston Churchill) were fathered by a well known society figure and horseman, Bay Middleton. The twins, Nellie and Bill, were the subjects of less certain parentage, although Sir Henry Hozier, for one, was convinced they were not his. Nellie joined her friend Angela Manners's private nursing unit as secretary and interpreter. Her elder sister Clementine, writing to Winston Churchill, said it was 'all cheap emotion. Nellie is not trained, she will be one more useless mouth to feed in that poor little country which in a few days will be the scene of horrible grim happenings.’ Nellie's unit arrived in Belgium in mid-August, 1914, and was almost immediately captured by an insurgent German Army. Thereafter, it worked behind the German lines, ministering to both British and German wounded, until December, when the German War Office allowed it to return to England. In December, 1915, she married Colonel Bertram Romilly, D.S.O., Scots Guards, a marriage not favoured by her family. They had two sons, Esmond (killed while serving in the R.C.A.F. in 1942) and Giles (P.O.W., Colditz Castle, in the Second World War). Her relationship with her brother-in-law, Sir Winston Churchill, was often difficult and in 1921 he loaned her £500 to set up a hat shop as she was very hard up. She, like her mother was an inveterate gambler and was often scolded for it by her sister Clementine. Nellie died of cancer in 1955, her husband having died fifteen years earlier. Note: Nellie Hozier’s 1914 Star was sold at Christie's, 21 October, 1991. For other family groups see lots 198 and 219.