Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare lady’s Memorial Plaque to Matron Mary Macgill, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, who served as Matron of the Military Isolation Hospital Aldershot, and who died from cerebro-spinal meningitis on 11 March 1915

Memorial Plaque, ‘She Died for Freedom and Honour’ (Mary Macgill) good very fine £3,000-£4,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to Female Medics.

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Dix Noonan Webb, June 2009.

Mary Macgill was born in 1883 and enrolled in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. She served during the Great War as Matron of the Military Isolation Hospital Aldershot, and died from cerebro-spinal meningitis contracted whilst on duty on 11 March 1915. Her obituary in the British Journal of Nursing of 20 March 1915 states: ‘Miss Mary Macgill, Matron of the Military Isolation Hospital, Aldershot, has succumbed to the disease which she has done so much to combat in those under her charge. She has been working devotedly for very long hours since the war broke out, and her over-taxed system could not resist the infection to which she was exposed. She was buried with military honours, her coffin on the gun carriage covered with the Union Jack. She is buried in Aldershot Military Cemetery, Hampshire, and is also commemorated on the memorial to Scottish nurses at St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, where she is listed as Matron Mary Macgill of the Military Families Nursing Service.