Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare Great War campaign group of five awarded to Ambulance Driver, Sergeant W. ‘Winnie’ Mordaunt, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, who was amongst the very first F.A.N.Y’s in France, was twice mentioned in despatches, and awarded the Croix de Guerre for gallant conduct during an air raid

1914-15 Star (W. Mordaunt. F.A.N.Y.C.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. Oak Leaves (W. Mordaunt. F.A.N.Y.C.); France, Croix de Guerre, reverse dated 1914-18, with bronze star; First Aid Nursing Yeomanry 1914-18 Service Medal, with four riband Stars denoting pre-War Service, together with a Sandown Races Bronze Medal, 1882, reverse numbered ‘1088’, light contact marks, therefore generally very fine (6) £800-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Julian Johnson Collection.

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Provenance: A. Flatow Collection, Spink, November 1998.

M.I.D. London Gazette 24 December 1917 and 25 May 1918.

Winifred Mordaunt, later Mrs John Geare was the daughter of Sir Charles Mordaunt, 10th Baronet, of Walton Hall, Warwick. She served during the Great War as an Ambulance Driver for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry on the Western Front from November 1915. She was based with the Ambulance Motor Convoy at Boulogne, and Pat Beauchamp (a contemporary of hers at Bouglone) in her book Fanny Goes To War gives the following insight:

‘It may be interesting to members of the Corps to know the names of those who formed that pioneer Convoy. They are: Lieutenant Franklin, M. Thompson (Section Leader), B. Ellis, W. Mordaunt, C. Nicholson, D. Heasman, D. Reynolds, G. Quin, M. Gamwell, H. Gamwell, B. Hutchinson, N. F. Lowson, P. B. Waddell, M. Richardson, M. Laidley, O. Mudie-Cooke, P. Mudie-Cooke and M. Lean (the last three were new members)....

We arrived at Boulogne in time for lunch, and then set off for our camp thirty kilometres away, in a British Red Cross touring car borrowed from the “Christol Hotel.” We arrived there amid a deluge of rain, and the camp looked indeed a sorry spectacle with tents all awry in the hurricane that was blowing.

Bell tents flanked one side of the large open space where the ambulances stood. A big store tent occupied another and the cook-house was in a shed at the extreme corner, with the Mess tent placed about as far from it as possible!

We had no telephone in those days, and orderlies came up from the Casino hospital and A.D.M.S. with buff slips when ambulances were wanted. At that time the cars, Argylls, Napiers, Siddeley-Deaseys, and a Crossley, inscribed “Frank Crossley, the Pet of Poperinghe,” were just parked haphazard in the open square, some with their bonnets one way and some another - it just depended which of the two drives up to camp had been chosen. It will make some of the F.A.N.Y.’s smile to hear this, when they think of the neat rows of cars precisely parked up to the dead straight, white-washed line that ultimately became the order of things!’

Mordaunt advanced to the rank of Sergeant, and Beauchamp goes on to mention ‘Winnie’ on several occasions throughout the book. She is also mentioned in F.A.N.Y. Invicta by Irene Ward, including Mordaunt’s post-war involvement with the organisation, when she was elected as a member of the Headquarters Staff Committee:

‘From the beginning of the inter-war period rather different personalities exercised control and the whole administrative machine was overhauled. Franklin was the first Commandant. It was also agreed to establish a more regular central committee to decide on Corps policy. The Headquarters Staff Committee consisted at first of Franklin, Joynson, A. H. Gamwell, Lowson, Mordaunt, Russell-Allen, Baxter Ellis, Mosely, Peyton-Jones, Walton and Waddell (soon to become Colston and Washington).’

Mordaunt is recorded as having been awarded the Croix de Guerre for gallant conduct during an air raid, and her two M.I.D.’s are amongst just 15 to the F.A.N.Y. for the whole of the Great War.

Sold with a copy of Fanny Goes To War, by Pat Beauchamp, copied research, and a photographic image of the recipient.