Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Major Baron de Teissier, Shropshire Light Infantry, later 8th Hussars, Yorkshire Regiment, and Imperial Yeomanry

Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, undated reverse, 2 clasps, Suakin 1885, The Nile 1884-85, clasps mounted in this order with unofficial retaining rod between clasps (Lieut: H. de Teissier, 1/Shrops: L.I.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, third clasp as tailor’s copy (Major H. Baron de Teissier, Yorkshire Regt.); British War and Victory Medals (Major Baron de Teissier.); Khedive’s Star 1884, unnamed as issued, contact marks and pitting to first two, nearly very fine, the Great War awards better (5) £600-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to Members of the Nobility and The Royal Household.

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Henry de Teissier, 5th Baron de Teissier, was born in 1865 in Rawalpindi, India (now Pakistan), the son of Lieutenant-General Henry Price de Teissier, 4th Baron de Teissier. The de Teissiers were an old Anglo-French family, and on 3 December 1819 James de Teissier was created a Baron of France by King Louis XVIII, 'in consideration for the kindness shown by his father during the French Revolution to French subjects, and in acknowledgement of the loyalty of the head of the family, Jean Antoine (de Teissier), 3rd Baron of Marguerittes, who was guillotined 20 May 1794'. Even by the standards of the time, conferring a French barony on a British subject was very unusual, and special dispensation had to be obtained from the Crown in the form of the Prince Regent.

Henry de Teissier was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry on 10 March 1883, serving with them the following year in the Egyptian and Soudanese campaigns. Promoted Captain on 19 March 1890, he exchanging into the 8th Hussars on 23 April 1892, before resigned his Commission on 28 July 1894. Subsequently joining the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, he served with them during the Boer War, before transferring to the Royal East Kent Imperial Yeomanry, as Captain, on 7 January 1902, and retiring, with the rank of Honorary Major, on 25 February 1905. On the outbreak of the Great War he applied to join the Territorial Force Reserves, and was appointed Captain on the General List on 28 July 1915. He served during the Great War on the Staff, and relinquished his appointment on 19 April 1918.

Baron de Teissier succeeded his father as 5th Baron de Teissier on the latter’s death on 27 May 1895, and married Miss Agneta Ballantine-Dykes, daughter of Frecheville Balantine-Dykes Esq., High Sheriff of Cumberland and M.P. for Cockermouth, in 1897. They had two sons, the younger of the two being killed in a flying accident whilst serving with the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War. In 1905 there was a problem with the Barony - the original paperwork from the Prince Regent's time could not be found, and it required King Edward VII to confirm by new Letters Patent that this French title could continue to descend down the line, but only to the direct male descendants of the present Baron. Baron de Teissier died in 1931, and was succeeded to the Barony by his only surviving son, Geoffrey. In accordance with the 1905 Letters Patent the Barony became extinct upon the death of the latter’s son.