Royal Victorian Order

[Chris Boonzaier]

Just picked this up.... unfortunately just a date and no name... :-(

[Ed_Haynes]

Nice. According to Galloway, Stanley, and Martin, 4 KCVOs were Gazetted 9 November 1903, but since your chap was an HONORARY KCVO (= an unwashed foreigner), there'd be no Gazette entry. The records at Windsor might help.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi Ed,

I am guessing a German as it was found here.

Maybe the German records.... but that would be a dead end i am afraid... :-(

[Ed_Haynes]

It is my understanding that the central orders chancery has records of normal awards (which they won't share) but that the Windsor archives have them all (if you can get it). As it was more a dynastic than a State award, records at Kew are minimal (though the foreign office may have taken note of a "K" to a foreigner?) The 9 November awards seem to have been awards on the occasion of Edward VII's (real) birthday. The guess at it being to a German seems a good one. A shame the envelope strayed. Nice one though.

[Guest Rick Research]

If this was to a military recipient, the "permission to wear" will appear (possibly some months afterwards) in the Prussian Milit?r Wochenblatt or the Bavarian Personal Nachrichten. There would have been civilian equivalents, but I'm not familiar with those.

Would require substrantial digging around to find them and time hunting through months of entries-- but on the chance that there was only 1 rather than 3 or 4 of this grade on that day it might be worth keeping in mind.

Not entirely without hope from the German end.

[JBFloyd]

In mid-1903, Edward VII made a European tour, visiting Portugal, Malta, Italy and France. This is the sort of thing that would come in the aftermath of such visits.

Getting anything out of Central Chancery is very, very unlikely. As the Victorian Order is the personal gift of the sovereign, they are even more reluctant to release data.

[David S]

Here's a potential starting list . . . (forgive the source, it beats a poke in the eye)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honor...British_Knights

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

the Brit Med forum guys dug out the awards of this level for this period... seems to be the short list of possibles....

[Ed_Haynes]

Based on this, you should be able to find these in the online London Gazette. While many (most?) honorary awards, especially later on, were not Gazetted, apparently these early ones were.

Few British awards for this tour seem to have been made, but Teddy was always willing to give away awards to helpful foreigners.

[Ed_Haynes]

Looking over this thread again, I do find the term "Knight Grand Cross" to be rather strange. as that would suggest a GCVO award. There was only one British award of the GCVO for Edward VII's Austria trip, to the British ambassador in Vienna (9 Oct. 1903). Again, honorary awards are another issue. Anyone who got this would have been quite a "someone".

[James Hoard]

Hi Chris,

Just saw this posting now.

Honorary awards were gazetted until early 1913, when King George V decided that they should no longer appear in the gazette. So you should be able to find the Honorary GCVO awards for 1903 in the online London Gazette. Failing that, you can use W.A. Shaw "Knights of England", Volume 1, 1906, which lists these awards down to the end of 1904. He lists 35 Honorary GCVO awards between January an the end of October.

A more recent work lists all RVO appointments up to 2000. See Risk, Powenell, Stanley, Tamplin & Martin "Royal Service", Volume III, Third Millenium Publishing, 2001 (ISBN 1903942047).

However, do be warned that the date on the Royal Warrant and the date of appointment do not always correspond, expecially with the honorary awards. The Royal Warrant could have been issued up to a year afterwards.

Cheers,

James

[Ed_Haynes]

Thanks, James. The only time I run across this one is with awards to Indians, so the background is helpful.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Thanks for all the efforts and info guys.

My long shot hope was it would have been attributable to a German of higher rank. I guess we will never know for sure, the best bet being the Austrians.

With that it will go into the trade box. maybe an Austrian collector can use it.

Best

Chris

[Greg]

As the proud owner of this document now, I would be interested to find out to whom it belonged. I also have a CVO medal and would like to find out whose it was. Is there any way of finding out working from the number stamped into the reverse of the medal?

Greg

(Melbourne, Australia)

[Chris Boonzaier]

As the proud owner of this document now, I would be interested to find out to whom it belonged. I also have a CVO medal and would like to find out whose it was. Is there any way of finding out working from the number stamped into the reverse of the medal?

Greg

(Melbourne, Australia)

Welcome greg!!