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Auction: 22001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 112

The British War Medal awarded to Dresser R .B. H. Wyatt who went on to become a noted Doctor and Pathologist, acting as Coroner for the executions of German Spies Karl Theo Drueke and Werner Heinrich Waelti during the Second World War as well as acting as an expert witness for the defence during the trial of the 'Blazing Car Murderer', putting him at odds with noted Pathologist Sir Bernard Spillsbury

British War Medal 1914-20 (Dresser R. B. H. Wyatt.), good very fine

Raymond Benedict Hervey Wyatt was born at Hampstead, London on 15 December 1890, the son of Arthur and Katherine Wyatt of 7 St. Peters Street, Bedford. Studying Medicine at Christchurch College, Oxford University, he enlisted with the Royal Navy and served as a Dresser aboard the Hospital Ship H.M.H.S. Glengorm Castle. This vessel served in that capacity from September 1914 with 423 beds aboard and a medical staff of 18 Officers and six nurses. Wyatt would doubtless have seen a good deal of service aboard the Glengorm Castle and indeed she was one of the last hospital ships to be decommissioned, this only happening in 1921. Strangely Wyatt's medals appear to have been issued by the Government of India although his address at the time is for Sunnyside, Hampton-in-Arden, Warwickshire.

Qualifying as a Doctor on 31 January 1919 he soon married Beatrice Emily Kiek at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Ladbroke Grove on 15 July 1919. Wyatt maintained his connection to the navy, serving as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve from 1926 with the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant. During this time he was also working as a Doctor on Wimpole Street, London as Honorary Pathologist of Bedfordshire Country Hospital and was called to the Bar at the Inns of Court on 3 July 1935.

It was around this time that he faced scandal in the press as his wife accused him of 'misconduct at a London Hotel' (Bedfordshire Times and Independent, Friday 05 July 1935, refers). A divorce was granted with the rather bemusing twist that Wyatt's wife had specifically stated that a divorce was 'the last thing in the world she wanted' (ibid). It appeared that for the sake of her professional career she would have preferred he divorce her. Regardless Wyatt was soon married again, this time to Sheila Primrose Cameron at Edmonton, Middlesex in 1939.

He was still a practicing Pathologist during the Second World War, even acting as Coroner at the executions of the German spies Waelti and Drueke who were hanged on 6 August 1941. The pair had been dropped from a seaplane in a rubber dingy and rowed to shore they were found to have in their possession a black suitcase containing wireless broadcasting equipment as well as a parachute, revolver and entrenching tool. Here Wyatt worked alongside legendary Pathologist Sir Bernard Spillsbury who provided evidence at the inquest, he had previously worked alongside him in the Alfred Rouse case. Wyatt died on 10 June 1977 at Cambridge; sold together with copied research including Naval lists, both British and Indian M.I.C.'s and Medical Registers as well as well as census data, a marriage ban and death index for 1977.

Further entitled to the 1914-15 Star and Victory Medal 1914-1919.

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Sold for
£85

Starting price
£40