An extremely rare Boer War R.R.C. pair awarded to Nursing Sister Helen Hogarth, Army Nursing Service Reserve, one of just three such decorations granted for services in hospital ships in the Boer War, in her case as a hand-picked member of staff aboard the Princess of Wales

Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, on lady’s bow riband; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Nursing Sister H. Hogarth) enamel somewhat chipped on upper arm of RRC, otherwise good very fine, extremely rare (2) £3,000-£4,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to Female Medics.

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Dix Noonan Webb, June 2008.

Only three ladies received the R.R.C. for services in hospital ships during the Boer War: Superintendent Miss M. C. Chadwick; Nursing Sister Miss H. Hogarth (both of the Princess of Wales); and Mrs. G. Cornwallis-West (of the privately funded Maine). The award of the Royal Red Cross itself for the Boer War is scarce, with just 77 awarded – one fewer than the number of Victoria Crosses awarded for the same campaign.

R.R.C. London Gazette 26 June 1902: ‘Miss H. Hogarth, Army Nursing Service Reserve, Hospital Ship Princess of Wales.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 17 June 1902.

Miss Helen Hogarth was one of just four nursing staff hand picked by H.R.H. Princess Christian to serve on the royal hospital ship Princess of Wales during the Boer War.

Hospital Ship Princess of Wales
Much of the history behind the creation of the Princess of Wales is well documented in the columns of The Times, Lord Wantage having corresponded with the newspaper in October 1899 about the creation of the Central British Red Cross Committee, including the Army Nursing Service Reserve, whose President was H.R.H. Princess Christian. In turn she became Honorary President of the newly formed Committee, out of which emerged the funding for a fully equipped hospital ship. The vessel in question, the well-known yachting steamer Midnight Sun, was chartered for the purpose and sent to the Armstrong works for the necessary alterations into a 200-bed hospital ship, ready to leave for South Africa by the end of November 1899. In addition to assisting with the cost of fitting the ship, Her Royal Highness spent more than £1,000 in luxuries and comforts for the sick and wounded soldiers and, at the express wish of the Central British Red Cross Committee, consented that the ship be called the Princess of Wales. In the company of her husband, she visited the ship at Tilbury Docks in late November, just before her departure for South Africa - painted white, the Princess of Wales had the Geneva Cross ‘standing out in bold relief on her side’. The Times continues:
‘The interior fittings have been swept away, commodious wards taking the place of dining room, music room, and so on, and the ship now represents a perfectly equipped floating hospital. There are three large wards, and one small one, the last being for officers, and altogether cots are provided for about 200 patients ... The operating room is on the lower deck, in the middle of the ship, and is fitted, not only with a cluster of electric lights showing right down on the operating table, but with the Rontgen rays, as well. Then there is a well-arranged dispensary and also an isolation ward. In addition to the wards already spoken of there are some private cabins available for sick and wounded officers. Three refrigerating rooms with a total capacity of 2,200 feet, have been arranged, in order to allow of an adequate supply of fresh meat being carried for the long voyage. The Principal Medical Officer will be Major Morgan, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and he will have three assistants from the same corps. Of nursing sisters there will be four – one, who will superintend, from the Army Nursing Service, and three from the Army Nursing Service Reserve of the Central British Red Cross Committee. The three have been personally selected by Princess Christian, who has taken the greatest interest in the arrangements ... The nurses (Sisters Chadwick, Brebner, Hogarth, and Spooner), the staff and the men of the Royal Army Medical Corps who go out with the vessel were drawn up on deck as the Royal party came on board. Passing through commodious wards the Royal visitors entered the officers’ ward, into which the dining and music rooms have been converted, and inspected the numerous appliances provided for the relief of the patients ... To the personnel as well as to the vessel the Princess of Wales devoted much attention. Her Royal Highness presented to each nurse a distinguishing badge and addressed to them individually a few words of encouragement and approbation ... The Princess then proceeded along the line of R.A.M.C. men, 23 in number, and to each she handed a badge. To a similar number of the St. John Ambulance Brigade Her Royal Highness also gave badges and expressed special interest in this branch of the hospital staff, who, for the first time, are being sent abroad for service.’

Those services were much required by the time the Princess of Wales reached South Africa in the wake of ‘Black Week’ in December 1899, unprecedented British casualties having emerged from the battles of Magersfontein, Stormberg and Colenso. In all, the Princess of Wales made three voyages to South Africa and on each occasion that she berthed back at Southampton H.R.H. the Princess of Wales made private visits to the ship to meet the nursing staff and the sick and wounded. And the first such occasion was in February 1900, when she was cheered into port by nearly 500 men about to depart for South Africa in the Goorkha. The Times once more covered events in detail:
‘Then away to the Empress Dock close to the embarkation office where the Princess of Wales, formerly the Midnight Sun, was being slowly warped up to the quayside. Her bulwarks were lined with as healthy looking a lot of men in blue uniform as ever I saw, but one imagined that below there must be many worse cases. But it was comforting to find on asking Major Morgan, who was the R.A.M.C. surgeon in charge, that, as a matter of fact, there was only one man out of the 174 who was not on deck, and that he was carried on deck every day. In fact, the state in which the men arrived did every credit to Major Morgan and Miss Chadwick, the superintendent nursing sister, and to the nurses, female and male, who have been in charge of them. Of limbs lost there appeared to be but a small percentage, but of a sort of partial paralysis following upon a wound from a Mauser bullet there were a good many cases among these victims of Magersfontein and the Modder River ... ’

The Prince and Princess of Wales visited the officers, nursing staff and wounded men on board the ship the day after it had docked at Southampton, carrying out a ‘friendly inspection’ of each and every ward, The Times’ correspondent reporting that ‘there is not one of the 176 men on board the Princess of Wales who cannot boast that the wife of the Prince of Wales has spoken to him words of comfort and encouragement.’

On 14 April 1900, the Princess of Wales left Southampton for Table Bay, Cape Town, where she worked as a floating hospital until returning home with more wounded and invalids that July - as was the case before, H.R.H. the Princess of Wales inspected the ship and met all of the 170 casualties and the nursing staff, Major Morgan and the Nursing Sisters being presented to the Princess as she arrived on board. So, too, on her return from her third and final trip in December 1900, when H.R.H. the Princess of Wales was introduced to two particularly bad cases:
‘The cases that aroused the deepest sympathy of Her Royal Highness were those of two men named Stoney, of the Liverpool Regiment, and Dyer, of the Scots Guards. Stoney was wounded in eight places, most of the bullets having been fired into him after he had been knocked down; while Dyer was shot through the head and paralysed in both legs and one arm.’
Moreover, The Times report continues:
‘Before leaving the ship she presented the four nursing sisters – Misses Chadwick, Brebner, Hogarth, and Spooner – with a souvenir brooch. The brooch consists of a white enamel cross surmounted by a gold crown, and the front of the cross bears the initial ‘A’ in gold.’

In the course of this visit, the Princess was presented with an official record of the services rendered by the ship, in which it was stated the Princess of Wales had travelled considerably over 40,000 miles and the total number of admissions of sick and wounded for treatment on board or conveyance to England amounted to 728, of whom 523 were brought home to England, while the remainder returned to duty in South Africa or were transferred to hospitals there.