Auction: 23113 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 214
The Defence Medal awarded to Clerk of the House B. St. G. Drennan, Parliamentary Home Guard
Defence Medal 1939-45, in its box of issue named to 'Mr B. S. G. Drennan, Committee Office, House of Commons, S.W.1.', with forwarding slip, mounted as worn by Spink & Son, together with corresponding minature award, this also mounted as worn, good very fine (2)
Basil St. George Drennan was born on 22 January 1903 and was educated at Radley College and Keble College, Oxford. Appointed an Assistant Clerk in the House of Commons in 1926, he remained there in service until 1960. During the Second World War he was the Senior Clerk and sat on the Select Committee for National Expenditure during the War years and thence was on the first Visit to Germany in 1946. In the pivotal moments on May 1940, Kay Midwinter made history when she was appointed as the first female Clerk in the House of Commons. He would have also shared in the work to clear up the wreck after the House was hit by bombs in May 1941. Drennan would have been present for every seminal moment and heard the very early news of the D-Day Landings in June 1944. Several of his letters remain in the Archives of the House of Commons as a result. Also sent to attend the 1948 Olympics, he was Principal Clerk of Committees from 1958-60 and retured to research and edit the Keble College Register. Elected to the Royal Philatelic Society of London in 1962, Drennan died on 12 November 1976 and is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford; sold together with a family portrait photograph and a letter to him.
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Sold for
£110
Starting price
£20