Orders, Decorations and Medals

The intriguing C.M.G. group of seven awarded to William F. A. Rattigan, H.M. Diplomatic Service, father of the playwright, Terence Rattigan (1911-77)

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with neck cravat, in damaged Garrard, London case of issue; 1914 Star (W. F. A. Rattigan); British War and Victory Medals (W. F. A. Rattigan); Coronation 1911; Coronation 1937; Romania, Commemorative Cross 1916-18, the six medals mounted as worn, good very fine and better (7) £800-1000

C.M.G. London Gazette 5 June 1920. ‘First Secretary in His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service’.

William Frank Arthur Rattigan was born on 11 April 1879 and educated at Harrow and Magdalen College, Oxford. Nominated an Attaché, 23 December 1902, he was appointed to Vienna in April 1904 and transferred to The Hague in June the same year. Promoted to 3rd Secretary, August 1905 and 2nd Secretary, May 1909. Was a Gold Staff Officer at the Coronation of George V. Served in Cairo, 1912 and Berlin, 1913. With the start of the Great War, Rattigan was lent to the War Office for service with the General Staff of the Army, attached to the 6th French Army and the Belgian Army, and was in France and Flanders from 13 August to 6 November 1914, being slightly wounded in an explosion at the front. He was transferred to Bucharest in February 1915 and was promoted to 1st Secretary in May 1916. With the collapse of Romania, Rattigan beset with illness, and his wife, were forced into Russia, then in the throes of revolution, before they could make their way back to England. After the war he acted as Chargé d’Affaires at Bucharest, 22 April 1919-15 October 1920. For his services he was awarded the C.M.G. Promoted to be Counsellor of Embassy in the Diplomatic Service, November 1920, and transferred to Constantinople in February 1921, where he acted as Chargé d’Affaires, May-July 1921. He retired on a Pension on 1 December 1922 and died on 9 March 1952.

William Rattigan married Vera Houston in 1905. By her he had two sons, one of which was the celebrated playwright, Terence Rattigan (1911-77). Frank Rattigan’s life as a diplomat is vividly portrayed in his autobiography, Diversions of a Diplomat, 1924. An account of Terence Rattigan’s early life with his parents is given in Terence Rattigan a Biography, by Geoffrey Wansell. In the latter is a story of an affair his father had with Princess Elizabeth of Romania (later Queen of Greece) which resulted in a pregnancy and secret abortion. It suggests that this was one of the reasons behind his early (forced) retirement from the Diplomatic Service.
Sold with the books Diversions of a Diplomat, by Frank Rattigan and Terence Rattigan a Biography, by Geoffrey Wansell; copied m.i.c., Foreign Office List and Gazette extracts, and other research.