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Auction: 26003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 270

Sold by Order of a Direct Descendent

The impressive Great War M.C. group of twelve awarded to Major Sir Arthur Penn, late Grenadier Guards, a long-served royal courtier who was appointed G.C.V.O. in the Coronation Honours in 1953

Royal duties aside, he served with distinction as Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion on the Western Front, in which role he was wounded and befriended fellow officer Harold MacMillan, to whom he acted as Best Man at his marriage in 1920

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; 1914-15 Star (Lieut. H. A. Penn. G. Gds.) note the initials in the wrong order; British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Capt. A. H. Penn.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Coronation 1937; Coronation 1953; France, Legion of Honour, Commander's neck badge, gilt metal and enamel, in its case of issue; France, Croix de Guerre 1914-1917, with gilt star; Italy, Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, Knight's breast badge, gold and enamel, in red leather case of issue; Italy, Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, Officer's breast badge, gold and enamel, in Borani Tofino, Rome case of issue, the first eight mounted as worn with replaced campaign awards, the originals separate, the Legion of Honour with chipped enamel work in places, otherwise generally very fine or better (12)

Note: as the initials on the recipient's 1914-15 Star were impressed incorrectly, he reportedly refused to wear his Great War trio, instead wearing an erased set; those originals are present with this group.

M.C. London Gazette 3 June 1918.

Arthur Horace Penn was born on 20 April 1886, the son of William Penn of Taverham Hall, Norfolk, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; his brothers, Eric and Geoffrey, were killed in action in the Great War, the former with the Grenadier Guards and the latter, his twin, on attachment to the Somerset Light Infantry.

Himself commissioned in the Grenadier Guards in January 1915, he was embarked for France in the following month, and was appointed Lieutenant and Adjutant in September 1916, in which role he was subsequently wounded in action. The Somme offensive aside, his battalion was heavily engaged in the Ypres salient, Penn gaining advancement to Acting Captain in August 1917. He was awarded the M.C. and French Croix de Guerre (London Gazette 25 September 1917, refers), in addition to being mentioned in despatches.

Pursuing a legal career after the war (having been previously called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1910), in 1920 he was the best man at the marriage of Harold Macmillan (a fellow Grenadier) to Lady Dorothy Cavendish. Penn then served as a partner - and later Chairman - of the brokers King and Shaxson in the City of London before, in 1937, accepting an invitation to join the Royal Household, when he was appointed a Groom-in-Waiting to King George VI, shortly before his coronation. Those duties were partly curtailed by the renewal of hostilities, when he donned uniform once again as Regimental Adjutant of the Grenadier Guards, but he nonetheless served concurrently as an Extra Equerry to the King and as an Acting Private Secretary to the Queen. Following the King's death, Penn became Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, in addition to being appointed Groom-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth II. Somewhat bizarrely, in mid-1960 both his name and that of the Queen Mother got into the tabloid press with a story that the two were considering marriage: she is reported to have said that those rumours were "complete and absolute nonsense".

As a senior member of the royal household, Penn was a guest at Princess Elizabeth's marriage to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in 1947 and he likewise attended the Coronation in 1953, on which occasion he was appointed G.C.V.O. He had earlier been awarded the C.V.O. in 1946 and the K.C.V.O. in 1949. Penn died a day before he was due to retire from royal service in December 1960.

Sold together with a copy of the instructions for wearing the Danish Order of the Dannebrog, to which he was also entitled, and two sets of miniature Great War Trios, one with an M.I.D. oak leaf, together with a mounted Queen's South Africa dress miniature medal.

For the recipient's Dutch Order of the House of Orange, please see Lot 460; for his Romanian Order of the Crown, please see Lot 462.

For the medals awarded to his twin brother, please see Lot 158.

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Estimate
£1,200 to £1,600

Starting price
£950