Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Great War pair and memorial plaque to Staff Nurse Martha Townsend, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, who died in Salonika in September 1918

British War and Victory Medals (S. Nurse M. Townsend) together with ladies Memorial Plaque (Martha M. Townsend) the medals in their named card boxes of issue with transmission letter and Registered envelope addressed to her father, extremely fine (3) £1500-2000

Staff Nurse Martha Townsend, Q.A.I.M.N.S.R., went out to Salonika on 6 May 1918, and died there on 21 September 1918. She was the daughter of Mr and Mrs James Townsend of Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex, and is buried in Mikra British Cemetery, Kalamaria, Thessalonika, Greece. Within this cemetery is the Mikra Memorial which commemorates almost 500 nurses, officers and men of the Commonwealth forces who died when troop transports and hospital ships were lost in the Mediterranean, and who have no grave but the sea. They are commemorated there because others who went down in the same vessels were washed ashore and identified, and are now buried in Thessalonika.