Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

The O.B.E. group of five awarded to Mr H. B. Thomas, Director of Surveys and Land Officer, Uganda Civil Service, late Captain in the East African Protectorate Forces, who was an authority on all matters pertaining to Uganda

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 1st type breast badge; British War and Victory Medals (Captain H. B. Thomas); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937, nearly extremely fine (5) £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to Civilians from the Collection of John Tamplin.

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Harold Beken Thomas was born on 27 January 1888, and was educated at Dover College. After four years in western Canada in the Engineering Department of the Canadian Pacific Railway, from 1907 to 1911, he then devoted the greater part of his life to Uganda. He went there in 1911 as a Cadet in the Colonial Civil Service, in the Land and Survey Department, and was appointed Survey Probationer in November 1911. After the Great War he was appointed a District Surveyor in January 1921, became Deputy Director in April 1924, and Director of Surveys, Land Officer and Commissioner of Mines in October 1938. He retired in 1940.

His work included the triangulation of Uganda, and the laying out of what are now substantial residential areas, including part of Kampala. During the Great War, Thomas served as a Captain in the East African Protectorate Forces in German East Africa in 1917-18. He was appointed an O.B.E. (Civil Division) in 1934, London Gazette 1 January 1934, and received both the Jubilee medal of 1935 and the Coronation medal of 1937, both awards being announced in the Uganda Official Gazette. During the Second World War, Thomas served with the Special Operations Executive in London from 1940 to 1945.

His writings were considerable. With Robert Scott (later Sir Robert), he undertook the preparation of an official handbook, Uganda, published in 1935; with A. E. Spencer he wrote A History of Ugnada Land and Survey, published in 1938; and for many years he contributed to the Uganda Journal. In 1967 he was awarded the bronze medal of the Royal African Society for dedicated service to Africa. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1922, was a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society Library Committee 1946-63, and was long associated with the Church Missionary Society and vice-president of that society from 1948. Mr H. B. Thomas, O.B.E., died at Bexhill on 12 August 1971, aged 83. Sold with full research.