Decorations of museum donator Wilhelm Pelizaeus

[webr55]

In the German town of Hildesheim, there is a very good museum for Egyptian and other Ancient art, the "Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum". Now I went there recently and found - among all the mummies and sphinxes - a showcase with the decorations of one of the two benefactors the museum was named after:

Wilhelm Pelizaeus is listed in the DOA 1908/09 as director of the railway company Keneh-Assuan, living in Cairo. He holds a Prussian Crown Order 3rd class, a Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic (Commander grade), and a neck cross of the Turkish Osmanie Order. And here they are, well preserved, all three (sorry for the bad photo):

(Below is the document for his honorary Dr. from the University of Göttingen.)

 

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[Guest Rick Research]

No biographical details on him? It's a strange family name (I had never heard it before) but there were a quartet of them in the Orders Almanac and all in important jobs.

That's quite an odd trio of Orders...

he must have led an "Indiana Jones" sort of life out there building railways through wild deserts and picking up the odd treasures here and there.

Those days are gone forever... but what exciting times it must have been before the Great War came along and changed everything forever!

[webr55]

Ah, the museum has some info on him. Born 1851 in Hildesheim, he went to Egypt first in 1869 to enter his uncle's company in Alexandria. For the next decades, he led various companies in Egypt (railway, electricity, water, co-founder of the National Bank of Egypt) and became quite wealthy. He also was continually interested in Egyptian history, financed excavations and so on. In 1909, he transferred his private collection back to Hildesheim, where the museum was opened two years later. In August 1914, when he was in Europe, the British government in Egypt declared him persona non grata and auctioned off all his belongings in Egypt. He was compensated for a small part of this in 1925.

The University of Göttingen gave him the hon. Dr. in 1921. In 1930, Pelizaeus died in Hildesheim. Apart from the Hildesheim museum named after him, there is still a Pelizaeus asylum in Alexandria.

Edited November 11, 2017 by webr55

[Stogieman]

Interesting that there are the two rather high foreign decorations but only the PCO3 from Germany itself?

[webr55]

Interesting that there are the two rather high foreign decorations but only the PCO3 from Germany itself?

Judging from the DOA1908/09, the PCO3 was quite standard for someone like him. 2nd cl would have been a General-equivalent already. Maybe a RAO4 would have been appropriate - that's what the average university professor got.

But of course, other countries usually treat people better than their home state!

[Guest Rick Research]

The weird thing is: how did he get the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic while labouring almost 40 years in the Egyptian desert building railroads?

Receiving an award from the then-supreme political leader of the Muslim world and an award named for the Queen who expelled the Moors from Iberia the same year she provided the travel expenses for that guy they named Columbus, Ohio after is also ironic.

[Ed_Haynes]

The Spanish order was passed out fairly freely to esteemed European Catholics, without much regard to underlying logic. We make, I think, a mistake, to introduce any assumption of too much "system" into the "honors system". Then or now.

He was a (greater) German Catholic, working in Egypt, and "lifting" anything that wasn't firmly affixed (and some things that were), and repatriating them to the Fatherland. 'Nuff said?

Maybe he sent some plunder onto Spain as well? These are, after all, the Days Before eBay.

[webr55]

Fear not, there is a solution to every riddle!

I dug a little deeper: Wilhelm Pelizaeus was, for twenty years, the Spanish consul in Egypt!

[Claudio]

That makes completely sense to me!

I have also a bar with the Spanish Order of Isabela la Cat?lica... also of a German, Herr Kunstmann, Consul for Spain (I don't where, though!).

Ciao,

Claudio

[Gerd Becker]

Wow Lets see a pic of the complete bar please

[webr55]

Claudio, that's a really nice one, I remember it from WAF. But strange, Kunstmann got only the Knight's Cross, while Pelizaeus made it to Commander grade.

[Claudio]

Maybe Pelizaeus was "Generalkonsul" and Kunstmann only "Konsul"...

Here's the pic of my medal bar, showing it all:

Ciao,

Claudio

[Gerd Becker]

Thanks, Claudio. Awesome bar

[derGeneral]

Thats really one of the greatest medal bars I've ever seen ! Only Fantastic...

[eitze]

WOW

With the "Star of Brabant" - more than rare

greetings

eitze

[Guest Rick Research]

Hi Claudio-- since you got that bar from the Seymour collection I have the 1917 "Hofkalendar"

on page 507 (I will copy it for you and attach scan later)

A. Kunstmann, since 1904 Consul for Spain at Swinem?nde for the region of Swinem?nde and the islands of Usedom and Wollin.

Research never stops.

[David M]

Beautriful bar, the little training I have had in this and the WAF-forum make me recognize all but the one right to the japanese order...is it a redcross award?

David

WOW

With the "Star of Brabant" - more than rare

greetings

eitze

[Claudio]

@ David: it's a Spanisch Red Cross Merit Order, 2nd class.

@ Rick: Thanks for the information. It's like a puzzle... more pieces are getting together. Who knows? Maybe I will be able to recuperate some other stuff of him on the market in the next years...

Ciao,

Claudio

[Guest Rick Research]

Claudio: here you go. The Spanish consuls started at the bottom of the left page and ran to Kunstmann as the very last person in the last line on the right hand page:

[attachmentid=40754]

[Stogieman]

Nice to see this bar again Claudio.

[VtwinVince]

Wow, that really is a spectacular bar, thanks for showing it. One of my ancestors was German consul in Madrid and, unfortunately, his spange has been lost. However, I have his ceremonial dagger, which was a gift of the Spanish government, and which was made at the famous blade-making centre of Toledo.

[Chris B.]

That's pretty neat Vince! Do you have any photos of this Gentleman? If you know which orden he received, you could try to reconstruct it in full or in part. Framed and under glass with a nice plaque it would make a great display and you'd be saving a little (albeit) reconstructed, family history. Cheers, Chris B.

Edited May 27, 2006 by Chris B.

[VtwinVince]

You're right, Chris, that would make a great display, however I just spent a bunch of money reconstructing my great-grandfather's spange, so it'll have to wait. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of him, as he was an uncle of my grandmother's. I have no idea how the dagger survived, as it was found amongst my grandfather's relics after he died.

[Guest Rick Research]

I had no idea this thread has been sleeping in the back pages for so long. Since it first was posted, I've got the Lippe Detmold House Order rolls-- I'll post you Kunstmann's entry when I find it, Claudio. Will also check the HORRID Schaumburrg-Lippe one for that as well.

[Guest Rick Research]

Aha! Arthur Kunstmann, Konsul und Reeder, Stettin, born Swinem?nde 29 December 1871 received LDH4a #651 on

9 November 1918!