Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain R. I. Douglas, Royal Army Medical Corps, late British Red Cross Society - who served with distinction in the relief operations following the Messina Earthquake

1914 Star (R. I. Douglas. B.R.C.S. & O. St. J.J.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.) extremely fine (3) £300-350

Reginald Inglis Douglas was born in 1879 and received his medical training at the University of Durham and St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He obtained the diplomas M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. in 1904 and gained the degrees M.B., B.S. (Durham) in 1906. Two years later he became D.P.H. He held appointments at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital and the Metropolitan Hospital. In 1908 he began to practice in Rome, catering for the British citizens there. The following year he organised the British relief expedition to assist the victims of the Messina earthquake. For his services he was awarded the Italian Order of the Crown, 4th Class. .

A citation which appears in Angels in Blue Jackets, by Wilson and Perkins, reads, ‘Dr Inglis-Douglas - “Volunteered as Medical Officer after the earthquake. Joined British Field Hospital at Catona. Stayed after the hospital was withdrawn. Lived for many months in tents, working incessantly and with conspicuous success in the humane work for which he had abandoned his professional prospects in Rome.”’

At the outbreak of war he joined the British Red Cross in France during September 1914 and subsequently received a commission in the R.A.M.C. During 1915 he served in Gallipoli, where he remained until the evacuation, after which he served in Italy. On the termination of the war he was appointed Medical Officer to the Ministry of pensions at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1922 he began to practice in Bedford and to be Medical Officer at Bedford Prison. Dr Douglas died in April 1929. His son, Lieutenant James Edward Vincent Douglas, Royal Engineers, died on 2 January 1945, aged 23 years. He was buried in the Kohima War Cemetery. With copied research.