Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Lieutenant-Colonel P. W. Robinson, Royal Artillery, late Royal Air Force

British War and Victory Medals (2/Lieut. P. W. Robinson. R.A.F.); War Medal 1939-45; Efficiency Decoration, G.VI.R., 1st issue, silver and silver-gilt, reverse officially dated ‘1939’, lacking integral top riband bar; mounted as worn, very fine (4) £180-220

T.D. London Gazette 28 March 1939: ‘Lt.-Col. Philip Worth Robinson, 67th (S. Midland) Fd. R., Royal Artillery.’

Philip Worth Robinson was born in Stourport, Worcestershire, on 11 June 1898, and was educated at Bedford School. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery (Special Reserve) on 7 October 1917, and transferred to the Royal Air Force on 6 August 1918. After undergoing training to become an Observer he was appointed Second Lieutenant Observer Officer on 7 November 1918, and was posted to the British Expeditionary Force as a Corps Reconnaissance Observer with No. 2 Squadron on 10 November 1918. Following the cessation of hostilities, he was posted to the Home Establishment on 2 February 1919, and transferred to the Unemployed list two days later.

Resuming his service with the Royal Artillery (Territorial Army), Robinson was promoted Lieutenant on 31 July 1921, whilst serving with 266 Battery, 67th (South Midland) Brigade, and was promoted Captain in 265 Battery, 67th Brigade on 18 May 1926; and Major on 1 November 1929. He passed his Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate at Worcestershire Flying School on 11 June 1937. He was appointed Officer Commanding, 67th (South Midland) Brigade, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on 16 February 1939, and was awarded his Efficiency Decoration the following month. He transferred to the Territorial Army Reserve of Officers on 22 November of that year, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and served throughout the Second World War as a Member of the Worcester Territorial Army Association.

In civilian life Robinson worked in his mother’s family firm of Bond Worth & Sons Ltd., carpet manufacturers, and in the 1940s and 1950s he filed a number of patents in the United States and elsewhere for products relating to manufacture of carpets. He died at Savernake Forest on 1 February 1960.