Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Captain J. Forbes, East African Medical Service attached King’s African Rifles, a Private Practitioner in Kenya from 1921

1914-15 Star (Capt. J. Forbes. E. Afr. M.S.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. J. Forbes.); Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, East Africa 1918 (Capt. J. Forbes. E. Afr. M.S.) generally nearly extremely fine, scarce (4) £800-£1,200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from an Africa Collection.

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R. Magor Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, July 2003.

John Forbes was born in Mains of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire in February 1875. He entered the East African Medical Service in August 1914, and served as the Senior Medical Officer, Carrier Corps, East African Expeditionary Force in 1915. Forbes resigned his commission in November 1918, and practised colonial medicine in Lake Magadi, Kenya as a private practitioner from 1921. His medical thoughts on Kenya are described in Islands of White, by D. K. Kennedy:

‘Several doctors testified that Kenya was healthy and suitable for permanent settlement. Most notable was Doctor John Forbes, a private practitioner with five years experience in the colony, who charged that most causes of ‘sunstroke’ were actually due to malaria aided by excessive consumption of alcohol. Dr Forbes declared “if people will hermetically seal up their houses carefully excluding air and light, how can they expect to remain healthy?”

Especially pervasive in the two territories was malaria and its ravages, which were suffered by a large portion of the white population for whom diagnosis as Dr Forbes observed in Kenya was not always accurate. Often however settler accounts of neurasthenic maladies appeared in conjunction with complaints about the social disabilities of colonial life. Loneliness, monotony and insecurity were recurrent themes for settlers in Kenya and Rhodesia.’

Dr Forbes was employed as a district surgeon from 1930, and died in Nairobi in January 1950. He is buried in the Nairobi City Park Cemetery.

Sold with copied research.