Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Six: Miss Dorothy Minnie Newhall, British Red Cross Society & Order of St. John of Jerusalem and Serbian Relief Fund

1914 Star, with copy clasp (D. M. Newhall, B.R.C.S. &O. St. J.J.); Serbia, Order of St. Sava, 2nd type, 4th Class, silver-gilt and enamel, slight enamel damage; Oblitch Bravery Medal, silvered bronze; Medal for Zeal, silvered bronze; Serbian Retreat Medal 1915, silver and bronze; Cross of Mercy, enamelled, very fine and better (lot) £400-500

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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Nursing Sister Dorothy Minnie Newhall, British Red Cross Society entered France on 29 October 1914. She then served with the Serbian Relief Fund as a Sanitary Inspector, 1 April 1915-27 August 1919. Miss Newhall is listed as having served as a Nursing Sister with the Stobart Hospital at Kragujevatz.

With silver identity bracelet inscribed, ‘D. A. M. Newhall 1914 R.A.M.C. France .... 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919 .....’ and ‘3.9.39 1 York Chambers, London Argo 244/1’, some inscription obscure due to wear; also with a ‘Serbian Relief Fund’ lapel badge, enamelled; ‘S.R.F.’ collar dog and a cloth ‘four-chevron’ badge; also with riband bars. Also with a Foreign Office letter dated 24 June 1927 to accompany a diploma from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for her services rendered during the war in connection with relief work in Serbia; with framed and glazed certificate of award for the Oblitch Medal; framed and glazed certificate of award for the Serbian Retreat Medal 1915 (Cross of Mercy not confirmed); a translation; an accompanying letter; copied m.i.c. - stating ‘not entitled to BWM & VM’; details of the provenance of the medals, including her will, and some biographical details in which Miss Newhall is several times mentioned. One such:

‘I found Dot Newhall the friendliest and jolliest of the hospital staff. She was their sanitary inspector. She told me that the hospital was a paradise to what it had been when they arrived. It had been used by the Bulgars and the filth was indescribable. I came across her because the scandal of my bug. I had three sleepless nights - one with a louse, next with a mouse, which ran over my face, and the third, at the hospital, with a bug. When I found how deeply Dot Newhall took the bug to heart I Protested that I had brought it with me - I hadn’t realised what an insult and reproach a bug would be to a sanitary inspector in an English hospital (!)’