Beschreibung:

The Julian Johnson Collection A rare Liyakat Medal in gold group of five awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel G. L. Bonham, Grenadier Guards, who was wounded in action during the Boer War at Biddulphsberg, 29 May 1900, and held positions with both the Macedonian and Ottoman Gendarmeries, for which he was awarded the Liyakat Medal - in recognition of services rendered during the revolutionary period of 1908. He was married to Amy Bonham (nee Gaskell), the daughter of the well known society hostess May Gaskell, and the subject of both a portrait by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and a book called A Profound Secret by Josceline Dimbleby Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State (Capt. G. L. Bonham. Gren: Gds.) clasps are tailor’s copies, with unofficial rivets; King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps (Capt. G. L. Bonham. Gren. Gds.) top lugs neatly removed; Coronation 1902, silver; Ottoman Empire, Order of the Medjidieh, 2nd Class breast Star, silver, gold and enamel, with Arabic backplate; Ottoman Empire, Liyakat Medal, gold, solder repair to suspension or last, this loose, edge bruising to first two, generally nearly fine or better (5) £1400-1800 Footnote Provenance: Christies, July 1990 (when sold without the Order of Medjidieh). George Lionel Bonham was born in August 1873, the eldest son of Sir George Francis Bonham of Knowle Park, Cranleigh, Surrey. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant, Grenadier Guards, in March 1892, and advanced to Lieutenant in August 1896. Two years later he married Amy Bonham (nee Gaskell) who was the subject of a portrait by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones The artist having a very close relationship with her mother May Gaskell (a successful society hostess - known as the “Lady of Marble Arch”), which along with the life of Amy and her tragic death is featured at length in Josceline Dimbleby’s A Profound Secret published in 2004. G. L. Bonham also frequently features in the book ‘Lionel [sic] had fresh faced good looks and the perfect figure for a guardsman: tall, slim and erect. He looked immaculate in his uniform. When I showed a photograph of Lionel in his casual clothes - a straw boater and flannel trousers - to the oldest living member of his family, Sir Anthony Bonham, he said, ‘How debonair,’ which was exactly the right description. His wavy fair hair, blue eyes and rosy skin were unmistakably English... There is hardly a photograph of Lionel without a cigar between his rather full lips. But he was not a Philistine; he was a sensitive man who loved reading, and May was later to remark that he wrote some of the best letters of anyone she knew, which, considering her other correspondents, and her own talent for writing, was high praise indeed.’ The couple were married at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, 11 June 1898, ‘The Times described it as ‘a pretty military wedding’. Standing at attention down the entire nave of the large church was a company of the second battalion of the Grenadier Guards, making a brilliant border in their scarlet uniforms. Lionel’s father Sir George Bonham, tall and handsome with aquiline features, had come from Rome where he was at that time First Secretary at the British Embassy.... Sir Edward Burne-Jones played his part in the family event by being a witness at the signing of the register.’ (Ibid) Bonham advanced to Captain in October 1899, and went with the 2nd Battalion for service in South Africa: ‘Lionel had been active in the Orange Free State for the past few weeks. On 29 May [1900] he was wounded by a Boer bullet during the Battle of Biddulphsberg, which was near Senekal, a small town of about twenty-five houses and a church. As the Grenadier Guards advanced on the morning of the battle, they could see no sign of the Boers, but they soon came under a hail of bullets. They lay down on the ground but, still visible on the open veldt, were an easy target for the enemy. With many men already wounded, the long dry grass suddenly caught fi