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Auction: 25112 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 425

Pair: Lieutenant the Reverend H. B. Playford, Army Service Corps, attached Royal Air Force, who rowed for Cambridge in three successive Boat Race victories, and subsequently drove ambulances across Nazi-threatened France in 1940

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. H. B. Playford.), nearly extremely fine (2)

The Reverend Humphrey Blake Playford was born in 1896 and was educated at St. Paul’s School, London. He served during the Great War as a Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps, attached to the Royal Air Force. Subsequently going up to Jesus College, Cambridge, he was President of the Cambridge University Boat Club, 1921-22, and was ‘distinguished by rowing in three successful races against Oxford [in the Boat Race 1920, 1921, and 1922] and rowing Head of the River for [Jesus] College in the same three years.’ Ordained in Holy Orders, he subsequently became a Housemaster at Stowe and is recorded as wanting to do ‘his bit’ in the Second World War: ‘The Reverend Humphrey Playford, now rising 40 [sic], had managed to be driving ambulances in Nazi-threatened France [in the summer of 1940]’, before being compelled to beat a hasty retreat. He died in 1981.

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Sold for
£150

Starting price
£100