Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant the Reverend H. B. Playford, Army Service Corps, attached Royal Air Force, who rowed for Cambridge in three successive Boat Race victories, and subsequently drove ambulances across Nazi-threatened France in 1940

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. H. B. Playford.) nearly extremely fine (2) £80-£100

The Reverend Humphrey Blake Playford was born in 1896 and was educated at St. Paul’s School, London. He served during the Great War as a Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps, attached to the Royal Air Force. Subsequently going up to Jesus College, Cambridge, he was President of the Cambridge University Boat Club, 1921-22, and was ‘distinguished by rowing in three successful races against Oxford [in the Boat Race 1920, 1921, and 1922] and rowing Head of the River for [Jesus] College in the same three years.’ Ordained in Holy Orders, he subsequently became a Housemaster at Stowe, and is recorded as wanting to do ‘his bit’ in the Second World War: ‘The Reverend Humphrey Playford, now rising 40 [sic], had managed to be driving ambulances in Nazi-threatened France [in the summer of 1940]’, before being compelled to beat a hasty retreat. He died in 1981.