Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important Boer War D.S.O. group of thirteen awarded to Colonel B. H. S. Romilly, Scots Guards and Egyptian Army Camel Corps, brother-in-law to Winston Churchill

Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Belfast (Lieut., Scots Gds.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lieut., Scots Gds.); 1914-15 Star (Major, S. Gds.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col.); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Egyptian Order of the Nile, 3rd class neck badge; Turkish Order of Osmanieh, 4th class breast badge; Egyptian Order of Ismail, 4th class breast badge in silver, gold and enamels, the suspension device probably a replacement; Khedive’s Sudan 1896-1908, 2 clasps, Talodi, Nyima, unnamed as issued; Khedive’s Sudan 1910-21, 2 clasps, S. Kordofan 1910, Mandal, unnamed as issued, the first slightly chipped in places, very fine or better (13) £4000-5000

D.S.O. London Gazette 31 October 1902.

Bertram Henry Samuel Romilly was born in November 1878 and was educated at Charterhouse and the Royal Military College, prior to being commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1898.

He went on to witness extensive action in the Boer War, much of it while attached to the Mounted Infantry, being present in the advance on Kimberley and at the actions at Poplar Grove, Driefontein, Vet River (5 and 6 May1900) and Zand River. Later, in the Transvaal, he was also present in the engagements at Johannesburg, Pretoria, Diamond Hill and Belfast. Twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 10 September 1901 and 29 July 1902), Romilly was also awarded the D.S.O., the latter, according to regimental sources, for gallantry in action on 4 February 1902, when he led a charge against the Boers who were attacking Colonel Crabbe's column.

From 1903 to 1906 Romilly was attached to the Egyptian Army Camel Corps and was one of only eight British officers who took part in the Talodi operations in June 1905. After a brief interval as Adjutant of the Scots Guards he again served with the Egyptian Camel Corps in the punitive expedition in the Nyima Hills in November1908. And in November and December 1910, he took part in the operations in Southern Kordofan, before once again serving a stint as Adjutant of the Scots Guards in London. Returning to the Sudan in 1912, he went on to command the Mandal expedition against the Nubas in March 1914: the combination of clasps on his two Khedive's Sudan Medals is unique to a British officer.

Romilly was twice wounded during the Great War, firstly at Neuve Chapelle on10 March 1915, and secondly during the Third Battle of Ypres on 29 July 1917, on the latter occasion very seriously in the head. He had commanded the 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards for a brief period before receiving this wound and was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 22 June 1916).

After the War Romilly served as Military Governor of Galilee, 1919- 20; Lieutenant-Colonel commanding 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards, 1920-24; Chief Instructor at the Cairo Military School, 1925-28, and as an A.D.C. to H.H. the Khedive of Egypt. He retired to his estate, Huntington Park in Kington, Herefordshire and died in May 1940, his funeral being attended by ‘Mrs. Winston Churchill’, his sister-in-law: Romilly had married, in 1915, Nellie Hozier, daughter of Colonel Sir H. M. Hozier, and younger sister of Clementine Churchill; his eldest son, Giles, was held in solitary confinement at Colditz in the 1939-45 War, his Churchillian relations qualifying him for special treatment as “Prominente”.

Sold with several period photographs, one of them depicting a native village being fired during the Mandal expedition in 1914.