Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

North Persian Forces Medical Officers Memorial Medal 1921, 57mm, silver, hallmarks for London 1934, the obverse featuring a snake coiled around a staff, branches of laurel and scimitars to either side, the sun in splendour in the background, scroll below, ‘North Persian Forces’ and on outer band, ‘Memorial Medal’, the reverse inscribed ‘Presented by The Medical Officers N.P.F. 1921, Awarded for the Best Contribution to Tropical Medicine during the Year 1933 to Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander S. G. Rainsford R.N.’, nearly extremely fine £80-£100

The North Persian Forces Medical Officers Memorial Medal was awarded annually for the best paper, published in any journal, on Tropical Medicine ad Tropical Hygiene. The prize was open to Medical Officers of under 12 years’ service of the Royal Navy, Royal Army Medical Corps, Royal Air Force, and Colonial Services.

Seymour Grome Rainsford was born in 1900 and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He joined the Royal Navy on a Short Service Commission in 1922 and after initial courses at the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar saw service on the China station until 1925 in which year he transferred to the Permanent List. Having served as a specialist in bacteriology in 1929, and receiving the North Persia Forces Memorial Prize in 1933 for work on brucellosis in the Mediterranean area, he embarked on a successful career in preventative medicine. He proceeded Doctor of Medicine at Dublin University in 1932, obtained the Diploma in Public Health in 1937, gained the degree of Doctor of Science in 1939 and was elected MRCP in 1949. He was awarded the Sir Gilbert Blane Medal in 1938.

Rainsford’s Second War appointments included employment with the Royal Navy Blood Transfusion Service (where he was promoted Surgeon Captain), the Tropical Research Unit at Bombay, work investigating the effects of environmental heat on working efficiency, and finally s Staff Medical Officer to Supreme Commander, South East Asia Command, Lord Louis Mountbatten, until 1945, in which year he was awarded the Chadwick Gold Medal and prize for outstanding work in Naval Hygiene. There then followed a year investigating methods of submarine escape and three years as Liaison Officer with the US Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3 in Egypt. In 1949 he was appointed Director of Studies and Medical Research at the Royal Naval Medical School, Alverstoke.

Promoted Surgeon Rear-Admiral in 1952 Rainsford was a created a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1955 Birthday Honours’ List (London Gazette 9 June 1955). He was placed on the Retired List that same year, and died in 1994.

Sold with copied research.