One of Blackburn's first OBEs up for auction

12:14pm Thursday 17th July 2008

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AN OBE awarded to a Blackburn-born naval hero will go under the hammer in London next week.

The silver-gilt medal was awarded in 1920 to Engineer Commander Henry Smalley Briggs for his service on the HMS Dragon, a cruiser ship which played a major role in liberating Latvia after the First World War.

The London Gazette from March 5 1920 lists his honour, with the citation: “For valuable services in maintaining the efficiency of the engines of HMS Dragoon in the Baltic.”

The medal will be sold by Spink of London on Thursday, July 24, and is expected to attract up to £140.

Briggs was one of the first Lancashire people to be awarded the Order of the British Empire – it was introduced only three years before, in 1917.

Experts in local history at Blackburn Library said he was listed as being born at 119 Montague Street in the town in 1877 to Ann Briggs and her husband Walter, a leather currier and tanner.

His family were believed to have moved to Blackpool soon afterwards.

The young Briggs was educated at Manchester Municipal Technical School and Queen’s College, Manchester, before he joined the Royal Navy. He was in his early twenties when he became an engineer sub lieutenant.

At the age of 69 he decided to make a new life for himself and emigrated to New Zealand.