Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War O.B.E. group of six awarded to Rev. John Cairns, Army Chaplains Department

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919; Coronation 1902, silver; Coronation 1911 (Major J. Cairns, C.F.); Volunteer Officers’ Decoration, E.VII.R., unnamed, hallmarks for London 1904, lacking top bar; Volunteer Force Long Service, V.R. (Chaplain J. Cairns, 4th V.B. R. Scots); Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., unnamed, hallmarks for London 1921, with top bar, mounted for wear, contact marks, very fine (6) £800-1000

Ex D.N.W. 24 June 2009.

John Cairns was born in Longformacus, Berwickshire, on 18 March 1865 and was educated at Duns Public School, Edinburgh University and the United Presbyterian College. He was licensed as a preacher at Berwick-on-Tweed on 17 November 1891 and was appointed Preacher-in-Charge of Ardeer Congregation, Stevenson, Ayrshire. He was ordained and inducted at Kilmarnock in March 1894, serving at Holm United Presbyterian Church, Kilmarnock. During his ministry there he was several times Chairman of the Kilmarnock Parish Council and was appointed a J.P. in 1889. In 1904 he took up a position in charge of the Presbyterian Church at New Road, Woolwich and was later appointed Moderator of London South Presbytery. He was, whilst at Woolwich, Convenor of the Synod’s Committee on the Oversight of Soldiers and Sailors, and a member of two advisory committees at the War Office. During 1924-27 he was appointed to the Presbyterian Church at Benwell, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, after which he became Minister Emeritus and retired to the home of his youth at Duns in Berwickshire. A long serving member of the Volunteer and Territorial Army, he joined the 1st Berwickshire Rifle Volunteers in 1880. On 23 October 1886 he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the 2nd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers, The Royal Scots (later the 4th Battalion Royal Scots) and in October 1893 was promoted to Captain. As Acting Chaplain, Cairns was awarded the Volunteer Force Long Service Medal, this being notified in A.O. 171 of July 1902. Moving south to Woolwich, in May 1905 he was appointed a Captain in the 3rd Volunteer Battalion The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). He was awarded the Volunteer Decoration on 22 December 1905. Cairns was granted the honorary rank of Major in November 1906. On the introduction of the Territorial Force in 1908, he left the 3rd Volunteer Battalion but still remained in the Army Chaplains Department as an Acting Army Chaplain. On 5 March 1910 Cairns was appointed an Honorary Chaplain of the Chaplains Department, T.F., holding this appointment until his death in 1945. On the outbreak of the Great War Cairns was appointed a Temporary Chaplain to the Forces, 3rd Class, Army Chaplains Department. Later in the war he became an Assistant Principal Chaplain. During the war he served at Woolwich and at other home stations. He also served on the hospital ship Aquitania and the ambulance troop ship Braemar Castle. He received the thanks of the Secretary of State at the War Office for services on the Advisory Committee on Presbyterian Chaplains. When about to proceed to Archangel with the Expeditionary Force, he was laid aside with a slight attack of pneumonia; on recovery, he was ordered to India where he visited garrisons at Karachi, Bombay and Poona. For his services in the Great War he was awarded the O.B.E. (London Gazette 3 June 1919). He applied for but was declared ineligible, for the British War and Victory Medals and Territorial Force War Medal. He was demobilised in September 1920 and was awarded the T.D. on 9 October 1923. For his work in the interests of international relationships and American education, Cairns was made an Honorary Doctor of Sacred Theology of Gettysburg, U.S.A. The Reverend J. Cairns, O.B.E., V.D., T.D., D.D., J.P., died on 27 April 1945. Sold with copied research and several copied photographs.