2/Lieutenant Oliver Baldwin's 'Letter to Father', Cambrai 27th October 1918

Darling Father, At 5:15a.m. on the 27th of September when you were asleep, your son 2nd in command for the day of the 1st Guards Light Trench Mortar Battery was croaching in a 3 foot trench with the Irish Guards, smoking one one of his grandfather's cigars, waiting for 'zero' & under-going a slight German barrage. At 5:20 a.m. ('zero')a noise like six trains rushing through a narrow tunnel, coal being thrown downstairs, pots & pans being upset etc., etc rent the air. In other words our barrage of 9.2", 6" and 4.2" howitzers, 60 and 18 pounder, machine gun & every gun on our sector tore 'No mans land' & the canal bank to pieces-&we(as they say in the paper)'went over the top.' How we got through the wire & the German barrage of 'Minnies' I cannot tell, but we leapt into our first trench for a pause. This trench was receiving direct hits-one in the next bay to me & one on the parados wherein all went dark & I thought I was finished; but only covered with dirt. I thought it was time to get out so I led the battery to the canal............. ORB

Letter from Rudyard Kipling to Stanley Baldwin on Oliver Baldwin

This sword was sold at Bonham's London in their September 2012 sale and came out of estate of the 4th Earl Baldwin. This sword was ordered by Oliver Baldwin from Wilkinsons in 1917 and is numbered 54502. It has the device of the Order of St. Patrick which is the badge of the Irish Guards and has no battle honours on the sword as it was still a young Regiment only formed in 1900. It comes along with a doveskin bag along with a leather case with the intials of ORB. Below are interesting aspects of Baldwin's life and I can only recommend CJ Walker's book 'Oliver Baldwin A Life of Dissent' which takes a symapthetic but not uncritical look at his life. It must be noted that Kipling was Stanley Baldwin's first cousin, who thus, was Oliver's second cousin. The John who is refered to in the letter is Kipling's only son, who was killed at Loos with the 1st Battlion Irish Guards in 1915.

Oliver Baldwin 1899-1958

(Taken from the Wikipedia) Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (1 March 1899 – 10 August 1958), known as Viscount Corvedale from 1937 to 1947, was a British politician who had a quixotic career at political odds to his father, three-time Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin was educated at Eton College, and grew up in the shadow of his father's political career. He joined the Irish Guards on 30th July 1917 and served in France through the remainder of World War I. After the war he travelled extensively and worked as a journalist and travel writer. He was in Armenia with the job of an infantry instructor. There the Bolsheviks imprisoned him for two months and later he was imprisoned by the Turks for a further grim five months. Despite his Conservative family, he gradually grew to adopt left-wing views and eventually announced that he was a Marxist and joined the Labour Party. He frequently addressed crowds from a socialist platform at Hyde Park Corner. At the 1924 elections Baldwin contested the seat of Dudley for Labour. By this time his father was leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister, and his candidacy naturally attracted press comment. At the 1929 election he won Dudley, and served as a backbench member of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government, facing his defeated father across the House. He remained on personal good terms with his father despite their different politics, as each regarded their differences as being of principle and not personality. Baldwin refrained from personally attacking his father, and when he visited him, there was a tacit agreement that politics was not a suitable subject for discussion. Lucy Baldwin, who was also a strong Conservative, came from a background where questioning received opinion was regarded as a good thing, supported her son - although she did not like to attend the House of Commons to see her son and husband on opposite sides. Like other young left-wing Labour MPs, Baldwin was critical of MacDonald's insistence on strict financial management and refusal to launch large Keynesian public works programmes. Early in 1931 Baldwin resigned from the Labour Party and briefly associated with Oswald Mosley's New Party, but repudiated Mosley after one day and rejoined Labour. When MacDonald formed the National Government Baldwin remained with the opposition Labour Party and inevitably lost his seat in the 1931 general election. He returned to journalism. Baldwin fought Paisley at the 1935 election, failing to be elected by just 389 votes behind the Liberal candidate. In 1937 Stanley Baldwin retired from politics and was created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. As a result Oliver Baldwin acquired the courtesy title Viscount Corvedale, although he remained a commoner. In 1939 he rejoined the army, becoming a major in the Intelligence Corps and serving in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Eritrea and Algeria. Baldwin was homosexual, a fact well known within the family but not to the public (his mother was again supportive and both parents acknowledged his long term relationship with John Boyle). Among the consequences of Baldwin's homosexuality was a rift with the novelist Rudyard Kipling, (who was Stanley Baldwin's first cousin, and was sometimes referred to as Oliver's uncle). Baldwin had idolised Kipling in his youth and had been a favourite of the Kipling family. But when Kipling learned of Oliver's "beastliness" (and his radical politics), he cut him off. When Kipling died in 1936, Baldwin made a speech attacking his famous relative which was widely reported, although the real reason for the hostility could not be mentioned. At the 1945 general election, when Labour returned to power under Clement Attlee, Baldwin was elected for Paisley. In 1946 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary for War, a post he held until 1947. But there was little chance that he would hold high office. His homosexuality was well-known, and Attlee was concerned about the potential for scandal at a time when homosexuality was still illegal: he kept Tom Driberg out of the government for the same reason. When Stanley Baldwin died in 1947, Oliver succeeded him as Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. It was not possible at this time to renounce a peerage, and Baldwin had no choice but to leave the Commons and take his seat in the House of Lords. Later that year, presumably to give him a dignified exit from politics, he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, a British colonial territory in the Caribbean. He created a minor scandal by taking John Boyle with him. Partly for this reason, and partly because he made no secret of his continuing socialist views among the British planter elite in Antigua, Baldwin was recalled in 1950. He died in 1958 and was succeeded in the earldom by his brother.

1853 Pattern Guards Officer's Irish Guards sword made for ORB (Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin)by Wilkinson in 1917.

Wilkinson Sword Ledger for the Baldwin sword