Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A post-War C.M.G. group of four awarded to Sir Christopher Chancellor, General Manager of Reuters from 1944 to 1959

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with neck riband; Coronation 1953, unnamed as issued; Greece, Kingdom, Order of the Phoenix, Commander’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with neck riband; France, Third Republic, Legion of Honour, Officer’s breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with rosette on riband, generally good very fine (4) £400-£500

C.M.G. London Gazette 4 June 1948: ‘General Manager, Reuters’

Sir Christopher John Chancellor was born on 29 March 1904, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Robert Chancellor, G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., G.B.E., D.S.O., and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined Reuters in 1930 and remained with the agency for 29 years. Based in Shanghai from 1931 to 1939 with his young family, he kept the agency's China service operating after the Japanese invasion in 1932. He returned to London during the War, and worked with William Moloney and William Haley in reorganising Reuters' news and business operations, succeeding Sir Roderic Jones as the general manager of Reuters in 1944.

The Daily Telegraph credited him for keeping the company running under extremely difficult wartime circumstances, noting that ‘It was largely thanks to Chancellor that Reuters had survived the war intact, despite the loss for several years of the greatest part of its world market.’ By 1951, at the firm's 100th anniversary, Chancellor was credited with tripling the agency's correspondents and revenues.

He was additionally knighted in 1951 and received the King Hakkon VII Liberty Cross (1947), Officer of the Order of Orange Nassau (1950), Commander of the Order of Danebrog (1951), Officer of the Legion of Honour (1951), Commander of the Spanish Order of Civil Merit (1952), Commander of the Order of the Phoeneix (1953), Commander of the Order of Vasa (1953) and Commander of the Italian Order of Merit (1959).

Following his retirement from Reuters in 1959, Chancellor held various Fleet Street directorships, as well as serving on various charitable committees. His younger son, Alexander Chancellor, was editor of the Spectator form 1975 to 1984, and his grand-daughter is the actress Anna Chancellor. He died in 1989.

Sold with original named Coronation Medal transmittal slip, this framed.