Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell

Five: Dr Ruth Nicholson, The Scottish Women’s Hospitals, Assistant Surgeon, Royaumont Hospital

British War and Victory Medals (R. Nicholson); France, Croix de Guerre 1914-1918, star on ribbon; Medal of Gratitude, silver-gilt, unnamed, rosette on ribbon; Medal of Honour, Ministry of War for Epidemics, gilt, reverse embossed, ‘Miss R. Nicholson 1917’, rosette on ribbon; together with a set of five miniature dress medals, good very fine and better (10)
£260-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell.

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Ruth Nicholson was born on 2 December 1884, the daughter of the Rev. Canon Nicholson. She was educated at Newcastle-on-Tyne High School and the Universities of Durham and Dundee, taking the degrees M.B., B.S. in 1909; B.Hy., D.P.H. in 1911 and M.S. in 1923. After graduating in 1909 she worked in a dispensary in Newcastle before going to Edinburgh where she became an assistant to Dr Elsie Inglis in the Bruntsfield Hospital. Prior to the war she worked in Gaza in Palestine. With the onset of war she returned home and after being turned down for a voluntary medical unit she was accepted by the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and became an Assistant Surgeon at Royaumont Hospital, December 1914-February 1919. After the war she specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology and became Gynaecological Surgeon and Clinical Lecturer at the University of Liverpool and was one of the earliest Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She became the first woman President of the North of England Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and played a prominent part in the Medical Womens Federation. Dr Ruth Nicholson died in Exeter on 18 July 1963.

With copied research, including confirmation of the French awards and with a copied photograph of Nicholson and other women staff at Royaumont.

For her younger sister’s medals, see lot 1464.