The mounted group of four miniature dress medals attributed to Cicely, Lady Charles...

The mounted group of four miniature dress medals attributed to Cicely, Lady Charles Cavendish-Bentinck, British Red Cross Society and Order of St. John of Jerusalem The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Dame of Grace’s badge, silver and enamel; 1914-15 Star; British War and Victory Medals, mounted as worn; together with the recipient’s full-sized and miniature British Red Cross Society Medal for War Service 1914-18, both with integral top riband bars, good very fine (6) £100-£140 --- Provenance: Spink, July 1998 (when sold alongside both her full-sized medals and her husband’s full-sized and miniature medals). Cicely Mary, Lady Charles Cavendish-Bentinck, ‘one of the most admired beauties of her age’, married Major Lord Charles Cavendish-Bentinck, 9th Lancers, the half-brother of the 6th Duke of Portland, in 1897. Following the outbreak of the Boer War she was one of several intrepid ladies who travelled to South Africa in 1899 to be near their husbands. Shortly before the outbreak of hostilities, her friend Violet Cecil, whose husband, Major Lord Edward Cecil, was also to be besieged at Mafeking, was asked by Cecil Rhodes at Kimberley to look after his colonial mansion near Cape Town. This she did, being soon joined there by Lady Charles. The two ladies also 'spent much time at the Town Hall, in Cape Town, distributing rations and clothing for British refugees from the Boer republics'. On the arrival of General Sir Redvers Buller in advance of his Army Corps from England, Lady Charles and Lady Edward entertained him and his personal staff at Rhodes' house. The two ladies were also among the first to receive news of the Relief of Mafeking - a signal sent by Colonel Frank Rhodes, a Staff Officer with Mahon's Relief Column, read: ‘Relieved Mafeking. Husbands safe' - the husbands being Lord Charles Cavendish-Bentinck and Lord Edward Cecil. During the Great War Lady Charles opened a military hospital at Mapperly Hall where an extensive and 'thoroughly equipped medical electrical plant' was installed costing 'upwards of 900. She had earlier qualified for her 1914-15 Star by entering the African Theatre of War in May 1915. Sold with copied research.