Badge and star: Order of the Rising Sun

Awarded to Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot Fisher (1841-1920), see London Gazette 2 November 1917. Badge: A cabochon granet from which spring thirty two rays of white enamel edged gold, which hangs from a spray of three paulownia flowers and leaves enamelled in their proper colours. Suspended by a ring from a sash of red with white edges (wrong ribbon, that of the order of the Pawlonia Flowers). Star: The badge without the paulonia flowers superimposed on a similar shaped silver star of eight points. Uniface with brooch pin on the reverse.

Fisher was a notable technical and strategic innovator who played a major role in modernising the Royal Navy prior to World War I. In 1886 he was appointed Director of Naval Ordinance and Torpedoes. His time as First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 saw the introduction of the turbine engine in the Royal Navy and the construction of HMS ‘Dreadnought’. The fleet was concentrated closer to the British Isles to meet the threat from Germany. He was briefly appointed First Sea Lord again during 1914 after the British defeat at Coronel, but resigned after seven months following disagreements with Churchill over the Dardanelles expedition.