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Auction: 25111 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 1004

The mounted K.C.B., K.C.V.O. group of four miniature dress medals worn by Sir G. P. Coldstream, once regarded as 'one of the ten men who run Britain', who acted as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department from 1954-68, was Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, and a member of the British War Crimes Executive at which time he played a significant role in the Nuremberg Trials

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Civil Division, Knight Commander's (K.C.B.) Badge; Royal Victorian Order, Knight Commander's (K.C.V.O.) Badge; Defence Medal 1939-45; Coronation 1953, mounted together as worn, Coronation medal with contact wear, otherwise very fine overall (4)

Sir George Phillips Coldstream was born on 20 December 1907 in North Kensington, London, was educated at Rugby School and Oriel College, Oxford University, and was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn to embark on a career as a barrister. However, after four years of practising law in 1934 Coldstream left to join the Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury as an assistant, and that same year was married to Miss Mary Carmichael. From 1939 he then served as a legal assistant in the Lord Chancellor's Department, becoming Deputy Clerk of the Crown in Chancery in 1944.

That same year Coldstream joined the British War Crimes Executive as a member, for which he watched footage from Nazi concentration camps and prepared files for the Nuremberg Trials through 1946. A few years later, having divorced his first wife, in 1949 he married the widowed Sheila Whitty, whose husband Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. H. Whitty, D.S.O., M.C., The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, had been killed in action at Monte Cassino in 1944.

Coldstream succeeded Sir Albert Napier on 4 June 1954 as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Department upon the latter's retirement; he was to hold this position through four Lord Chancellors until 1968. In this capacity, he had a hand in important legislation including the Life Peerages Act 1958, the Peerage Act 1963, the Royal Assent Act 1967, and the Law Commission Act 1965 - which established the Law Commission. During his tenure he also oversaw a number of influential Law Lords appointments, including those of Lords Denning, Devlin, Diplock and Wilberforce. Coldstream received his appointment as Knight Commander of the Bath in 1955.

He was made Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1968, the year of his retirement as Permanent Secretary. Afterwards, he retained his position serving on the Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions until 1970, when he became chairman of the Council of Legal Education, a role in which he sat until 1973. Coldstream retired to Seaford in East Sussex, where he lived the rest of his life prior to his death there on 19 April 2004.

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Sold for
£90

Starting price
£60