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Auction: 11011 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 254

The Rare French Ministry of War Gold Medal For Epidemics Awarded to Dr. A. Berry, One of ´The Women of Royaumont´ France, Republic, Medal of Honour, Ministry of War Gold Medal for Epidemics, silver-gilt, reverse embossed ´Miss A. Berry 1917´, silver-marks to edge, good very fine, rare, with miniature rosette on riband Estimate £ 400-500 Dr. (Jessie) Augusta Berry, née Lewin, was born in Scotland and educated at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1894 to 1904. On the outbreak of the Great War she joined the ´Scottish Women´s Hospital for Foreign Service´, a proposed hospital unit officered by women doctors, and staffed by fully trained nurses, equipped to nurse 100 beds. However, the Unit´s offer of work was summarily dismissed by both the War Office and the Red Cross, and so it was to the French Authorities that the Unit´s committee offered their services. This time their offer was accepted, and so, having raised £5,500, this little band of six female doctors and their nurses under the command of Dr. Frances Ivens left for France, arriving at Royaumont Abbey, their home for the duration of the War, on the 30th November 1914. For the next four years Dr. Berry remained at Royaumont, until the 7th July 1918 when her health completely broke down as a result of the strain of the previous four years: ´A prop of the hospital from the beginning, she put her hand to everything from ward dressings and toe-nail cutting to cleaning out drains and cutting wood. She also had a fine brain and a very tender heart...she is very sweet and unselfish and would do anything on earth for the patients, and is a very skilful and devoted doctor. She has a driving sense of duty that could on occasion be puritanical. She could never rest while anything remained to be done- so she never rested.´ (The Women of Royaumont, by Eileen Crofton refers). As well as the Ministry of War Gold Medal for Epidemics, one of only six gold medals awarded to women doctors in the whole of the Great War, Dr. Berry was awarded the French Croix de Guerre, along with 22 other members of staff at the hospital, on the 20th November 1918, ´on prodigué à l´hôpital des Dames Ecossaises tant à Villers-Cotterets qu´à Royaumont leur science et la dévotion au blessés français et alliés, sous des bombardments répétés.´ However, as the hospital was not under the auspices of either the War Office or the Red Cross none of the Doctors or staff at the hospital qualified for any British awards.

Sold for
£420