Orders, Decorations and Medals

An interesting Great War group awarded to Surgeon Lieutenant H. Hamilton Bailey, Royal Navy, late R.N.V.R. and British Red Cross Society, who was captured in Brussels in 1914 and sent to Germany to work on the railways where he was sentenced to death for sabotage, but later repatriated to England he subsequently served as a Naval Surgeon and became probably the best-known surgical author in Britain; he was unusually the recipient of both the 1914 Star and the 1914-15 Star

1914 Star (H. H. Bailey, B.R.C.S. & O.St.J.J.); 1914-15 Star (Surg. H. H. Bailey, R.N.V.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Surg. Lt. H. H. Bailey. R.N.) together with silver and enamel medal of the Surgical Society of Piedmont (A Hamilton Bailey, Torino 27.V.1948) good very fine (5) £400-500

Henry Hamilton Bailey was born on 1 October 1894, at Bishopstoke, Hampshire, where his father was set up in a general practice. When 5 years old Hamilton was sent as a border to a preparatory school near Southport, and a few years later he entered St Lawrence College, Ramsgate. At the age of 16 he entered the London Hospital where he had no difficulty in passing the examinations. In 1914 the clouds of war appeared on the horizon, and Bailey, then a fourth-year student, volunteered for service with the British Red Cross Society. He disembarked in Belgium on 16 August 1914, where he was posted for service as a Dresser with the 1st Belgian Unit at a hospital in Brussels. Belgium being rapidly overrun by the Germans, Bailey was taken prisoner and sent to work on the railways in Germany. While thus engaged a troop train was wrecked and three prisoners, of whom Bailey was one, were held responsible for the sabotage. The other two were Frenchmen, but although all three were court-martialled and sentenced to death, only one Frenchman was actually executed.

Bailey was imprisoned on suspicion of being a spy but in due course was repatriated to England with a group of medical personnel and then served as a surgeon-probationer on a destroyer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Returning to the London Hospital, he qualified L.M.S.S.A. in 1916, held a resident post as a house-surgeon, and then served for the rest of the war as a temporary surgeon (commission dated 26 August 1916) in the Royal Navy, in H.M.S. Inflexible and Monitor 19.

When he was released from the Navy in 1919 he returned to London to start his hospital appointment and study for his F.R.C.S. By the end of 1920 he had passed both parts of this examination and became surgical registrar and tutor at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, and demonstrator of anatomy at Liverpool University. He then returned to the London Hospital as surgical registrar and, later, as first surgical assistant. He received a B.M.A. grant in 1925 and for the two following years he held the Gillson scholarship of the Society of Apothecaries. He was then appointed assistant surgeon to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, but, resigning from this post, he became resident surgeon at the Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham. After a short time on the staff of the Bruce Wills Memorial Hospital in Bristol, he came back to London and was elected to the staff of the Royal Northern Hospital, in charge of the genito-urinary department. In the course of time he joined the staff of several other hospitals, including the Italian Hospital, the Clacton Hospital, and the Metropolitan Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital. He was also surgeon and urologist to the Essex County Council, and he was an external examiner in surgery to the University of Bristol. A Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, he was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Société d’Urologie, and a vice-president of the International College of Surgeons.

Hamilton Bailey was probably the best-known surgical author in Britain; his books have been translated into many languages and enjoy a wide circulation in North America. An entire edition of Surgery of Modern Warfare was purchased during the second world war for distribution to medical officers in the armed forces of the U.S.A. Other notable books include A Short Practice of Surgery (written with Mr R. J. McNeill Love), and Pye’s Surgical Handicraft, of which he was editor. His Notable Names in Medicine and Surgery, written with Mr W. J. Bishop, was published in 1959. Hamilton Bailey died on 26 March 1961, at Malaga, Spain, where he retired during the winter months, after a succession of operations. He was 66 years of age. See also Hamilton Bailey: A Surgeon’s Life, an excellent biography by Adrian Marston, originally published 1999, recently republished (ISBN 9780521178242).