Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Surgeon Captain H. L. Murray, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who survived the sinking of the Hospital Ship Rohilla in October 1914, in which he recorded his experiences, and was subsequently Mentioned in Despatches

1914-15 Star (Surg. H. L. Murray, R.N.V.R.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Surg. Lt. Cr. H. L. Murrary. R.N.V.R.); Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Decoration, silver and silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1922, unnamed as issued, mounted court-style as worn, good very fine (4) £400-£500

M.I.D. London Gazette 22 August 1919.
The original Recommendation states: ‘Served in Hospital Ships Rohilla and Garth Castle and then in medical charge of Eaglet. Has always performed his duties in an exemplary manner and with much zeal. He was also very successful in his measures against influenza.’

Herbert Leith Murray was born in Aberdeen and was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, the Harris Academy, and the High School, Dundee. His professional training was at Marischal College, Aberdeen and at St. Andrews, and graduating in 1901 he secured numerous prize medals, among them the Leith gold medal for operative surgery. After some postgraduate work in Paris he took up his first appointment as house surgeon to the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital in 1902. Later he was resident surgeon at the Hospital for Women in Shaw Street, Liverpool, and at the same time worked in the Ashton Hall laboratories (later part of the pharmacology department of the University). In 1905 he took his M.D. and became assistant surgeon at Shaw Street. By now he was embarked on his career as a gynaecologist and soon acquired a large practice. In rapid succession, he became surgeon to the Hospital For Women and to the Liverpool Maternity Hospital and gynaecological surgeon to the David Lewis Northern Hospital; he was an examiner to the Central Midwives Board and became president of the North of England Obstetrical and gynaecological Society, and in October 1931 became Professor of obstetrics and gynaecology in the University of Liverpool.

Murray was commissioned Surgeon in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 15 February 1909, and served with the R.N.V.R. throughout the Great War, being posted to the Hospital Ship Rohillia. On 30 October 1914, sailing from South Queensferry, Firth of Forth, for Dunkirk to evacuate wounded soldiers, with 224 men, including medical staff, and five nurses on board, the Rohilla ran aground on Saltwick Nab, a reef about a mile east of Whitby, North Riding of Yorkshire, during a full North North East gale and with the lighthouses unlit due to the war. The reef is about 400 yards offshore and the ship soon broke her back. When rescue operations finished on 1 November, 83 men had been lost over the course of the three days. Lifeboats from Scarborough, Teesmouth, Tynemouth, Upgang and Whitby were involved. The self-righting Whitby No. 2 lifeboat John Fielden saved 35. The Tynemouth motor lifeboat Henry Vernon with her Coxswain and Second Coxswain on board, as well as Captain Burton and Commander Hall, battled 45 miles down an unlit coast against the gale to save 50 lives. Fifty-six other survivors made their own way ashore and a number of onlookers rushed into the surf to drag them out. In all, 146 of the 229 on board, including Captain Neilson and all the nurses, as well as Titanic survivor Mary Kezia Roberts, survived.

Murray’s own account of the sinking is as follows:
‘For then days before the wreck I had been in bed with influenza on a milk diet and getting aspirin constantly. I had a temperature over 101 on the night of the disaster.
A terrible gale had been blowing for hours, with all the Ward Room furniture broken adrift, the chairs, tables and cutlery making a frightful noise from midnight until we struck about 3:00 a.m., and the light went out. I got on deck in my pyjamas with one sea boot on, the other being lost in the darkness below. We helped each other to put on out life belts, ands then made a rush forward to the bridge, where the boat stations were, but we were caught on the way by a very big wave. I held onto a hatch combing with one hand and to a Sister with the other. The strain very nearly made me lose my hold and I “felt something go” at my heart, making me breathless then and for months afterwards. We got into the ship’s officer’s cabin, cracking in the roof, and with water pouring in at every wave. Someone broke into a locker and we got trousers for the nurses and a coat for me. We were soaking wet and hardly able to stand for the rolling of the vessel. At daybreak the ship was seen to be broken in two, with 200 people in the after end, which soon disappeared and all were drowned, as they had been tied to the rails to keep them from being washed away.
The first lifeboat, which got out at 9:00 a.m., took off the Sisters and some officers, and three hours later a second one took off the patients, myself, and some others. I was lowered down by a rope, hanging on all the time to a leading line thrown down from the ship to the boat and fell into the water (as a result of the terrific amplitude of the waves) but was hauled on board, as my wave came up ands the lifeboat came down. At the next roll of the ship I was hauled out of the boat again by the rope around me which my cold fingers could not unfasten, but fortunately I fell back in the boat and someone set me free. The lifeboat broke her back in the landing, and I lay in bed in Whitby for a week with cardiac dilation.’ (Into The Maelstrom: The Wreck of The Rohilla, by Colin Brittain refers)

Promoted Staff Surgeon on 13 December 1914, and Surgeon Lieutenant Commander on 15 February 1915, for his services during the Great War Murray was Mentioned in Despatches. Remaining in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve after his demobilisation in 1919, he was promoted Surgeon Commander on 15 February 1921, and was awarded his Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1924. He was promoted to his ultimate rank of Surgeon Captain in 1927. He died in June 1932.

Sold with copied research, including a photographic image of the recipient taken from his Obituary in The Lancet.