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Auction: 19002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 358

(x) The scarce O.B.E. group of four to Lieutenant-Colonel W. K. Garnier, Royal Marine Light Infantry, Superintendent of Physical Training and the driving force behind the Royal Marines' early involvement in the Royal Tournament

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military Division), Officer's 2nd type breast Badge, British War Medal 1914-20 (Maj. W. K. Garnier. R.M.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45, extremely fine, mounted court-style as worn (4)

O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1945.

Walter Keppel Garnier was born at Cranworth, Norfolk on 6 March 1882, son of the Reverend Thomas Parry Garnier (Rector of Cranworth) and The Hon. Louisa Warren Venables-Vernon, whose family was descended from King James I. Educated at Haileybury, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Marine Light Infantry on 1 January 1901, passing a Gymnastics course at Aldershot in May 1904. He served with the detachment aboard Balmoral Castle during the visit of H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught to South Africa in 1910. Promoted Captain on 1 January 1912, he was appointed to the Royal Marines' Physical Training Depot, Deal, overseeing the R.M. P.T. Display at the Naval and Military Tournament at Olympia in 1913. The enduring popularity of Royal Marines' displays at the Royal Tournament, as it later became known, was 'due entirely to the imagination and initiative of Walter Garnier' (Globe and Laurel, June 1969, refers). He became Superintendent of Physical Training on 7 July 1914.

Garnier served with the Royal Marine Light Infantry during the Great War, and was promoted to Brevet-Major for 'Meritorious Services' on 1 January 1917. He rose to the rank of Major on 6 June 1917. Placed on the Retired List on 31 March 1923, he was recalled for active service on 20 September 1939, becoming Acting Lieutenant-Colonel on 6 January 1945. His O.B.E., one of just 44 awarded to the Royal Marines for the Second World War, was gazetted in the 1945 New Year's Honours List. Discharged on 12 August 1946, he died in Flat 4, 33 Wilton Place, Knightsbridge on 6 May 1969; sold with copied research and confirmation of medal entitlement.


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Sold for
£700