Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Original caricature portrait by Sidney Conrad Strube (British, 1892-1956), depicting Quarter-Master Sergeant John “Slippy” Lansdell, 28th Battalion, The London Regiment (Artists Rifles), pen and ink on board, Lansdell depicted as a waitress, 34 by 42cm., framed and glazed, together with an original menu for the Artists Rifles’ Sergeants’ Mess Christmas Dinner of 1931, the front cover bearing this same caricature portrait, generally in good condition (Lot) £150-200

Both Lansdell and Strube saw service with the Artists Rifles during the Great War, Strube as a Corporal and Lansdell initially as a Private, but ending the war as a Company Quarter-Master Sergeant.

Sidney Conrad Strube (1892-1956), who studied at St Martin’s School of Art, was a cartoonist for the Daily Express newspaper from 1912 to 1948, and continued to send back cartoons for publication from the front during the Great War whilst on active service with the Artists Rifles, 1916-18. Whilst in France Strube served as a Regimental Physical Training and Bayonet Instructor. He brought his cartoonist’s sense of humour with him to military life, on one occasion filling a bayonet practice dummy with red paint, causing one of the new recruits to faint on striking his target. The Daily Express published Strube’s first album of cartoons in 1913, and when he was demobilised in 1918 the newspaper ran with the headline “Strube Comes Back”. Such was his popularity that by 1931 the Daily Express was paying him £10,000 a year, after it was obliged to match an offer made by its circulation rival, the Daily Herald. During the 1939-45 War Strube produced propaganda posters for the government, as well as advertising artwork for Guinness and other companies. After being sacked in 1948 by the Daily Express he worked freelance for the Sunday Times, Time & Tide, Everybody’s and Tatler, and continued to produce advertising artwork for Guinness. Strube, who was made a Freeman of the City of London, died at his home in Golders Green on 4 March 1956.

John Andrew Douglas Lansdell (1896-1976), was born Streatham, London, the son of the Reverend Frederick J. Lansdell (recorded in the 1901 census as being the Church of England vicar of the parish of St Barnabas, Douglas, Isle of Man), and Alice Ann Lansdell (nee Wilson). Lansdell was educated at the St John’s Foundation School for the Sons of Poor Clergy of the Church of England, Epsom Road, Leatherhead, Surrey. A pre-war Territorial Army soldier, he enlisted into the Artists Rifles in 1913 and was called up for active service on the outbreak of the war in August 1914.