Four: Nurse Ruth C. Jameson, British Committee of the French Red Cross

British War and Victory Medals (R. C. Jameson.); France, Third Republic, Medaille de La Reconnaissance, bronze, unnamed; La Société Francaise de Secours aux Blessés Militaires avec Palme, silver, unnamed as issued, good very fine (4) £200-£240

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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Ruth C. Jameson was born in 1895 and spent her early childhood in Sunninghill and Ascot. Educated at Wycombe Abbey, she was presented as a debutant to King George V and Queen Mary in 1914. Two years later she travelled to Normandy in a successful search for a cure to her mother’s phlebitis; thereafter, when her mother returned, Jameson enrolled into the French Red Cross as a nurse, witnessing initial service at a hospital in Bagnoles de Lorne looking after wounded French soldiers.

Returning home to Sunninghill in August 1917, Jameson soon took appointment as a nurse at her local Red Cross Hospital at Sandridge House. A later newspaper report offers an interesting record of this time: ‘One of the earliest women drivers, she also involved herself in the hospital car service, whereby she drove local people to and from London hospitals on a voluntary basis’. In February 1918 she returned to France, this time to a temporary hospital established in the Chateau d’Arc-en-Barrois within sound of the guns of Verdun.

The cessation of hostilities saw Jameson embrace travel and what she classed as ‘frivolities’. She later became a founding member of both the Guards Polo Club and the Windsor Horse Show, but the declining health of both parents saw her return to nursing and administrative roles. During the Second World War she acted as a fire watcher, firstly in Silwood Park Tower and secondly in St. Michael’s Church tower in Sunninghill. In 1948, at the age of 53, she decided to embark upon a new career as Hospital Service driver - it would occupy her life for the next quarter of a century.

Sold with the original Award Certificate for the second French decoration, to ‘Mademoiselle Ruth C. Jameson’ for service with different formations between 3 September 1916 and 11 August 1918, together with copied research and newspaper articles.