Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Fleet Surgeon R. Eustace, Royal Navy, who was specially promoted for services during the Ashantee War, and was awarded the Gilbert Blane Gold Medal for his paper on the forms of dysentery which so affected the Royal Marines landed on the Gold Coast in 1873

Baltic 1854-55, unnamed as issued; Ashantee 1873-74, no clasp (R. Eustace. Staff Surgn. 2nd Cl. R.N. H.M.S. Himalaya. 73-74.) cleaned and lacquered, otherwise good very fine (2) £500-£700

Richard Eustace joined the Royal Navy as an Assistant Surgeon in February 1854. In June 1862 he was promoted to Surgeon, and Staff (later Fleet) Surgeon in March 1874. He received the Baltic Medal for his service in H.M.S. Monarch, flagship of Rear-Admiral Bruce, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Station at Petropaulouski during the Russian War of 1854-55.

In June 1872 he was appointed to H.M.S. Himalaya and served during the Ashantee War of 1873-74. He received the thanks of the Admiralty for the care of the sick in troopship, and was promoted from Staff Surgeon 2nd Class to Staff Surgeon for his services (London Gazette 31 March 1874).
His Medical Officers Journal describing the ‘intermittent fevers, remittent fevers and malarious forms of dysentery, which decimated the greater part of the Royal Marines landed on the Gold Coast in summer of 1873’ earned him the Gilbert Blane Gold Medal. In 1876 he was awarded the degree of M.D. Honoris Causa by Queen’s University Ireland.

His records show that on 4 August 1878 he was directed to proceed to the wreck of the Eurydice which had been caught in a heavy snow storm off the Isle of Wight on 24 March 1878, capsized and sank. Only two of the ship's 378 crew and trainees survived, most of those not carried down with the ship dying of exposure in the freezing waters. It seems that Eustace wrote a critical letter concerning his duties, which presumably involved the salvage and recovery of bodies, which met with the displeasure of the Admiralty. He was reprimanded and placed on half pay in September 1878 and, in November 1879, he retired at his own request.

Sold with copied record of service