Orders, Decorations & Medals - British Groups

Lot 3844    Session 15 (7.30pm Thursday)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - British Groups

Estimate $2,500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $1,700

GROUP OF TWELVE: The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GRI type 1), Officer (OBE) (Military); Military Cross (GRI); 1914 Star, - clasp - 5th Aug.-22nd Nov.1914; British War Medal 1914-18; Victory Medal 1914-19 with MID; Jubilee Medal 1935; Coronation Medal 1937; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45. The first two medals unnamed, Lieut:P.K.Boulnois R.E. on third medal, Major P.K.Boulnois on fourth and fifth medals, all other medals unnamed as issued. The named medals impressed. The first seven medals swing mounted as a group and the WWII group of five medals swing mounted as a separate group, very fine - extremely fine.

Together with a matching group of twelve miniature medals swing mounted.

Ex Dix Noonan Webb Sale 9 Dec 1999 (lot 830).

OBE (Mil): Edinburgh Gazette 6/6/1924, Issue 14029, p766 to Captain Percy Kenneth Boulnois, MC, Royal Engineers, on the occasion of His Majesty's Birthday.

MC: Edinburgh Gazette 11/12/1919, Issue 13536, p3948 to Capt. (A./Maj) Percy Kenneth Boulnois, 54th Fd. Coy., R.E. (ITALY)

Citation: During the bridging operations of 26th October to 28th October, 1918, at Salettuol he rendered extremely valuable services under difficult and dangerous circumstances. Under hostile shelling and bombing he showed a fine disregard of danger, and set a splendid example to his men. It was largely owing to personal example that the operation was a success, and he showed great skill in organising the work under very difficult circumstances.

Note: During the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, October-November 1918,
the Royal Engineers, with the help of Italian engineers, built a pontoon bridge over the Piave River at Salettuol.

MID: LG 6/1/1919.

Percy Kenneth Boulnois was born on 12 February 1889 at Southsea, Hampshire, England. In 1903 he entered Wellington College, excelling academically, won the Wellesley Exhibition and passed first into the Royal Military Academy Woolwich. He was commissioned into the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1907 and due to his love of horses applied for a posting to a Field Company resulting in a position with 57th Company at Bulford on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire where he could hunt regularly on horseback. Percy was also a keen oarsman, rowing for the Royal Engineers at Henley in 1910 and 1911.

In WWI he served with his company in the opening campaign from Mons through to the first Battle of Ypres. After being invalided home in August 1915 and upon recuperation he went to RMA Woolwich as Instructor and Company Commander. In June 1917 he returned to the battle front when he was appointed to command the 54th Field Company in Italy where he was awarded the Military Cross and Mentioned in Despatches for his conduct during the operation of bridging the Piave River in October 1918.

Post war he worked as a survey specialist after a special course at Chatham and served on the German-Polish and Danzig Boundary Commission and following on was head of the Danzig Free State and Corridor Commission. He then proceeded to Africa for the delimitation of the frontier between French Equatorial Africa and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. A feature of this commission being that it was one of the first on which wireless was used for the determination of longitude and Percy Boulnois made a valuable contribution to the practical side of this process even preparing a paper on the subject in 1924. His work on this commission earned him an OBE (Mil).

After returning from Africa, he joined the Geographical Section General Staff at the War Office and as Liaison Officer with the Air Ministry was responsible for the early work in developing air charts. In 1927 he was appointed Chief Instructor at the Royal School of Military Survey, Chatham and in 1935 assumed command of the Geographical Section General Staff, later known as the Directorate of Military Survey. He was responsible for the preparation of mapping required in the event of war, a prospect which at the time was looming ever larger. He also reorganized the R.E. Survey Service thus laying the foundation for the large development of military survey during WWII.

In 1941 Colonel Boulnois was appointed Deputy Director Prisoners of War. He later joined the Petroleum Warfare Department, being sent to South Africa and then to Washington, USA with the Geoffrey Lloyd Mission. In August 1943, after joining the Civil Affairs Staff centre, he was appointed Military Governor of Sardinia. Post war he was the first Chairman of the Field Survey Association. After retiring from the Army he became Chairman and Managing Director of the St Bride's Press, the proprietors of 'The Surveyor and Municipal and County Engineer', a position that his father had held many years earlier. Colonel Percy Kenneth Boulnois OBE, MC, passed away suddenly at his home on 8 February 1952. His funeral, attended by a large contingent of high ranking military personnel, was held on 12 February at Golders Green Crematorium, London, one of the oldest crematoriums in Britain.

With research.