Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce ‘Defence of Kumassi’ group of three awarded to Doctor A. J. Chalmers, Ashanti Field Force, one of the Governor’s party in the break out from Kumassi, he was later distinguished in the field of tropical medicine

Ashanti 1900, 1 clasp, Kumassi, high relief bust (Dr: A. J. Chalmers. A.F.F.); Coronation 1911 (Capt A. J. Chalmers C.V.M.C.); Egypt, Order of the Nile, 3rd class neck badge by Lattes, silver, gilt and enamels, with full neck cravat, the first very fine, others good very fine (3) £2000-2500

Albert John Chalmers was born at Manchester in 1870, the son of the Rev James Chalmers, MA. He was educated at the Manchester Grammar School, then at the University Colleges of Liverpool and London. As a student his career was brilliant; he graduated M.B., Ch.B.Victoria in 1890, and in the same year was appointed Holt Fellow of the Liverpool College, a position he held for two years. When he graduated M.D.Vict. in 1893 he took the Gold Medal. He became F.R.C.S.Eng. in 1895 and, in 1897, joined the West African Medical Service.

He served as a medical officer with the Ashanti Field Force in 1900, and was with the British troops that were besieged in Kumassi.With the besieged garrison in imminent danger of starvation, Sir Frederick and Lady Hodgson finally, on the 23rd June, together with 24 Europeans, including Dr Chalmers and Dr Tweedie, a force of some 600 native soldiers and over a thousand non-combatants, left Kumassi. They left behind them a small garrison of two officers and and a medical officer with about a hundred men, who were relieved by the relief force under Brigadier-General Sir J. Willcocks on the 15th July. Willcocks took away the sick and wounded and again left behind a small garrison. This was in turn relieved by the force under Colonel A. P. Burroughs on the 5th August. Doctor Chalmers was mentioned in the despatch of Major A. Morris, Commanding Kumassi Garrison, dated 12 July 1900, London Gazette 4 December 1900: ‘Assistant Colonial Surgeons E. H. Tweedy and A. J. Chalmers displayed much zeal and energy in their manifold duties.’

In 1901 he was appointed Registrar of the Ceylon Medical College at Colombo, where during the following ten years he improved the organization and raised the standard of teaching, meanwhile lecturing on pathology and animal parasitology. In 1910 he joined Dr Aldo Castellani as joint-editor of their Manual of Tropical Medicine (the 3rd edition of 2500 pages was published in 1919), a standard text-book of permanent value.

He served as Major in the Ceylon Medical Corps, and was a member of the Ceylon Coronation Contingent in 1911, for which he received the Coronation Medal. After resigning the appointment he travelled, and studied pellagra in conjunction with Dr Sambon, and he was one of the first to recognize the occasional occurrence of the disease in this country. In 1913 he became Director of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratory at Khartoum, and was the author, wholly or in part, of a series of publications on tropical disease. At the same time he was a member of the Central Sanitary Board of the Sudan, of the Sleeping Sickness Commission, and of the Archaeological Committee. He was awarded the Order of the Nile, 3rd class.

During a holiday round the world he was including the study of tropical disease, when he was seized at Calcutta with acute infective jaundice, and died after a week's illness in the General Hospital on 5 April 1920. He married the daughter of Edwin Cannington, JP, but there were no children.

In 1921 Mrs Chalmers gave £500 to the Royal Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in memory of her husband. The Council decided to devote this money to the foundation of the Chalmers Memorial Medal. The medal, which is in silver gilt, bears a likeness of Dr Chalmers over the motto Zonae torridae tutamen on the obverse, and on the reverse a representation of Anopheles gambiae above a spray of the cinchona plant and encircled by the name of the Society. The Medal is awarded in his memory to this day.