Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Six: Nursing Sister E. M. Dutton, Army Nursing Service Reserve and French Red Cross, who was taken Prisoner in Salonika

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Nursing Sister E. M. Dutton.) officially re-impressed naming; King’s South Africa 1901-02, no clasp (Nursing Sister E. M. Dutton.); British War and Victory Medals (E. M. Dutton.); Serbia, Kingdom, Order of St. Sava, 2nd type, Fifth Class badge, silver-gilt and enamel, Bishop with red robes, unmarked, some enamel damage to tips of arms; Cross of Mercy 1912, gilt and enamel; together with the recipient’s Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve badge, silver, all mounted for display and housed in a glazed display frame, generally very fine (7) £1,000-£1,400

Miss Ethel Mabel Dutton was born at Surbiton, Surrey, on 2 November 1867 and served with the Army Nursing Service Reserve during the Boer War in South Africa as a Nursing Sister at 3 General Hospital, Kroonstad. Upon the outbreak of the Great War the British Red Cross archives show her as being part of the Cheshire 16/16 V.A., having engaged in October 1914, and the summary of her service shows ‘six weeks hospital duty, secretarial work at Richmond House Military Hospital, Chester and Hoole.’ She subsequently served with the British Committee of the French Red Cross during the Great War in the Greek Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and European Turkey theatre of War from June 1915 as part of the Wounded Allies Relief Committee, and is recorded as having been taken prisoner by the Bulgarians. Released, she returned to England in February 1916. She died at St. Lawrence, Isle of Wight, on 31 December 1945.

Sold with Medal roll extracts and some copied research.

FO372/1162 confirms the award of the Serbian Cross of Mercy; the Order of St. Sava is unconfirmed.