Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare R.R.C. pair awarded to Miss Catherine G. Loch, Lady Superintendent of Nurses, Indian Army Nursing Service - the ‘Florence Nightingale of India’

Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, unnamed, on bow ribbon; India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Hazara 1888 (Lady Supdt. C. G. Loch, Indian Nursing Service) nearly extremely fine (2) £2000-2500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell.

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R.R.C. London Gazette 27 October 1891.

Catherine Grace Loch was born in Worsley Old Hall, Manchester on 2 September 1854, the daughter of George and Catherine Loch. It was said of her that having been “born in the Crimean year, it seemed as though the spirit of military nursing had come with her into the world, and destined her to be ‘the Florence Nightingale of India’”.

Pursuing a nursing career, Miss Loch became a Nurse-Probationer at the County Hospital, Winchester, and in 1882 she became Night Superintendent at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. The Military Nursing Service of India was instituted in 1888 when Lord Roberts was C-in-C. in India. Lady Roberts drew attention to the need of skilled nursing for the British soldier in that country and the Government of India consented to the formation of an Indian Nursing Service. In March 1888 a band of eight nurses under the superintendence of Misses Loch and Oxley arrived in India - Miss Loch with five nurses went to the military hospital in Rawalpindi and Miss Oxley with three sisters went to Bangalore. There they worked to establish a modern nursing system, overcoming prejudice, primitive conditions and the shortcomings of the untrained staff on hand. Miss Loch, as Senior Superintendent, received many letters of encouragement from Florence Nightingale who took a particular interest in the progress of the service.

The detachment under Miss Loch became ‘blooded’ almost at once. In September 1888 her band of nurses was ordered to Abbottabad, the base hospital for the Black Mountain Expedition, later moving with the Hazara Field Force to Darband. For this service, the sisters were awarded the medal with clasp, and a few years later Miss Loch and others were awarded the Royal Red Cross 1st Class. In her diary entry for 28 January 1889 she writes, ‘I have just been writing a long letter to Miss Nightingale in answer to one of hers. She does write such charming letters full of encouragement and also lots of questions about our work. .... so you see she is very well up in all that goes on. I believe we shall have medals for the Black Mountain, which will be very jolly.’ Loch was one of five members of the Indian Army Nursing Service to be awarded the India General Service Medal with clasp ‘Hazara 1888’.

Miss Loch had firm views on women aspiring to be members of the Indian Army Nursing Service. Writing in 1896, she believed it was vital that sisters should be gentlewomen, ‘those who have not an unquestionable social position are not suited either for the work, or the society into which they are admitted when they join the service; they will be out of their element, and it will be hard both on themselves and on their colleagues’.

Catherine Grace Loch, R.R.C., died in Egham, Surrey on 1 July 1904, aged 49 years.

Sold with a quantity of copied research including gazette extract and photograph. The service of Catherine Loch in India is extensively recorded in Honours and Awards to Women to 1914, by Norman Gooding.