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Auction: 25003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 197

A Great War A.R.R.C. group of five awarded to Acting Sister M. F. Smith, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve & British Red Cross and Order of St John of Jerusalem

The gallant Scot Smith volunteered - and saw active service - in France in 1914 and would see further active service on Hospital Ships, in Salonika and at home

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class (A.R.R.C.), G.V.R., silver and enamel, with bow riband; 1914 Star (M. F. Smith. B.R.C.S. & O.St.J.J.); British War & Victory Medals (M. F. Smith. B.R.C.S. & O.St.J.J.); together with a double-issue British War Medal 1914-20 (A. Sister M. F. Smith.), good very fine (5)

A.R.R.C. London Gazette 24 October 1917 (Acting Sister, Section 3, Reading War Hospital, Q.A.I.M.N.S.R.).

Mary Ferguson Smith was a native of Helensborough, Scotland and was a trained nurse at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. With the outbreak of the Great War, she joined the British Red Cross and Order of St John of Jerusalem and landed in France on 6 October 1914. Remaining there until January 1915, when she returned home sick, Smith served at Paris Unit No. 5 attached No. 13 Stationary Hospital. Returned to Malassies St Omer from March-June 1915 and also at the Cambridge Hospital, she resigned and became a member of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. With that unit Smith served in the Hospital Ship Saleka from June 1916 and in Mesopotamia from December 1916. Closing out the Great War at the Reading War Hospital and taking her richly-deserved A.R.R.C., Smith is noted as having died at Pittsburgh, United States of America on 10 April 1921.

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Estimate
£700 to £900

Starting price
£550