Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An O.B.E. pair awarded to Miss Muriel St. Clare Byrne, a noted writer and lecturer

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 2nd type lady’s shoulder badge, silver-gilt, mounted ‘bow and tails’, in Royal Mint case of issue; British War Medal 1914-20 (M. St. C. Byrne); together with a mounted pair of miniature dress medal, extremely fine (4) £200-250

Muriel St. Clare Byrne was born on 31 May 1895, the only child of Harry St. Clare Byrne of Hoylake, Cheshire and Artemisia Desdemona Burtner of Iowa, U.S.A. Educated at Belvedere, Liverpool, and Somerville College, Oxford, she gained a B.A. in English in 1916 and an M.A. in 1920. She was employed as a teacher at Liverpool College, 1916-17; and South Hampstead High School, 1917-18, and was English Lecturer at Rouen employed with the Army, 1918-19. Her wartime m.i.c. shows service with the Y.M.C.A. After the war she was employed as a lecturer at Oxford and London Universities, 1920-37; the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, 1923-55, and Bedford College, 1941-45. Amongst others, she held the Leverhulme Research Grant, 1945; Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 1968; and Phoenix Trust Research Grant, 1970. Other positions held include: Honorary Secretary of the Malone Society, 1926-37; member of the Council of the Bibliographical Society, 1932-39; Member of the Committee of the Society for Theatre Research; member of the Council of R.A.D.A.; Governor, Royal Shakespeare Theatre; Governor, Bedford College. She became an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College in 1978. In the field of letters, she most notably edited The Lisle Letters, in 6 volumes, 1981; and Selected Lisle Letters, 1982; was author of History of Somerville College, 1921; Elizabethan Life in Town and Country, 1925; The Elizabethan Home, 1925; The Elizabethan Zoo, 1926; Letters of Henry VIII, 1936; Common or Garden Child, 1942; was co-author (with Dorothy L. Sayers) of Busman’s Honeymoon, 1936, and contributed to a number of other works in the field of Tudor history, Shakespeare and the theatre. For her literary work she was awarded the O.B.E. in 1955. Miss Byrne died on 2 December 1983.

Sold with O.B.E. award document, dated 9 June 1955, with envelope, addressed to ‘Miss Muriel St. C. Byrne, O.B.E., 28, St. John’s Wood Terrace, N.W8’; Statutes of the Order of the British Empire; a framed coloured portrait of her long term friend Dorothy L. Sayers, inscribed on back of frame, ‘To Miss Muriel St. Clare Byrne, O.B.E. with the compliments of the Dorothy L. Sayers Historical and Literary Society, 9 Feb. 1977’; a framed photograph of Dorothy L. Sayers; the book: The Lisle Letters, an Abridgement, edited by Muriel St. Clare Byrne; a letter to Miss Byrne from Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd - publisher of The Lisle Letters, an Abridgement, dated 2 June 1983.

The ‘Lisle Letters’, some 3,000 of them, were written during the years 1533-40, and were originally assembled in the search for evidence of treason by Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, illegitimate son of King Edward IV. The letters survive to this day in the P.R.O. and provide a valuable historical resource of the events of the time.