The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Companion, C.B., neck badge, Military Division, gild centres, otherwise silver-gilt and enamels, with length of neck ribbon. Circa Great War vintage, and a good example with the gold centres.
Condition: enamel work generally good with only slight loss to berries on the wreath, overall Good Very Fine.
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath (formerly the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath) was founded by King George 1st on 18th May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath . George I erected the Knights of the Bath into a regular Military Order . He did not (as is commonly believed) revive the Order of the Bath, since it had never previously existed as an Order, in the sense of a body of knights who were governed by a set of statutes and whose numbers were replenished when vacancies occurred.
