Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An extremely rare Black Mountain expedition R.R.C. group of three awarded to Sister Edith Welchman, Indian Medical Service, afterwards the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel T. C. Watson, V.C., Royal Engineers: among other duties, Miss Welchman undertook a two day journey with her senior, Miss Loch, an Indian soldier and a groom, camping out at night in hostile country - luckily, she and Miss Loch felt relatively secure, having been issued with revolvers, with which they ‘rather distinguished themselves at fifteen yards’ during instruction under Dr. Fawcett

Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, on Lady’s riband bow, in its Garrard & Co. fitted case of issue; India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Hazara 1888 (Sister E. Welchman, Indian Nursing Service); British Red Cross Society Medal 1914-18, together with a Queen Mary’s Nursing Guild enamelled badge, and Royal Engineers’ sweetheart brooch, in silver and enamel, with pastes, good very fine (5) £3000-3600

One of three R.R.Cs awarded for the Black Mountain Expedition and one of five India General Service Medal with Hazara 1888 clasp to members of the Indian Nursing Service; see Norman Gooding’s Honours & Awards to Women to 1914, for roll verification and further details.


R.R.C. London Gazette 27 October 1891.

The Military Nursing Service of India was instituted in 1888, when Lady Roberts, wife of the C.-in-C., drew attention to the need of skilled nursing for the British soldier in that country and the Government of India consented to the formation of an Indian Nursing Service. Accordingly, in March of that year, a band of eight nurses under the superintendence of Misses Loch and Oxley arrived in India - Miss Loch with five nurses, including Sister Edith Welchman, went to the military hospital in Rawalpindi and Miss Oxley with three sisters went to Bangalore. There they worked to establish a modern nursing system, overcoming prejudice, primitive conditions and the shortcomings of the untrained staff on hand. However, Miss Loch, as Senior Superintendent, received many letters of encouragement from Florence Nightingale who took a particular interest in the progress of the Service.

And the detachment under Miss Loch became ‘blooded’ almost at once, for in September of the same year her band of nurses was ordered to Abbottabad, and thence the base hospital for the Black Mountain Expedition at Oghi, where, Miss Loch observed, ‘our troops having gone over the crest of the mountain, we could not see them but we heard shots and saw the smoke of burning villages’. Having then treated our wounded, Miss Loch and Sister Welchman were ordered to Darband, having to undertake a two day journey through hostile country, in the company of an Indian soldier and groom - Dr. Fawcett giving them a crash course in revolver shooting prior to their departure, an activity at which they appear to have excelled. But their subsequent work at Darband was exhausting, their patients including Colonel Crookshank, shot through the leg, and Mr. Cleeve, shot in the neck.

For these services, the nursing sisters were awarded the Medal & clasp and, three years later, Miss Loch and two others, including Sister Welchman, were awarded the Royal Red Cross 1st Class [see Dix Noonan Webb, 13 September 2012, for Miss Loch’s R.R.C. and India General Service Medal]. In her diary entry for 28 January 1889, Loch writes, ‘I have just been writing a long letter to Miss Nightingale in answer to one of hers. She does write such charming letters full of encouragement and also lots of questions about our work ... so you see she is very well up in all that goes on. I believe we shall have medals for the Black Mountain, which will be very jolly.’

In February 1892 Edith married, at Meerut, Lieutenant Thomas Colclough Watson, R.E., who was to win the Victoria Cross at Bilot, on the North West Frontier, in 1897. After the award of Watson’s V.C., the only other couple to have the joint distinction of V.C. and R.R.C. were the Commander-in-Chief and his wife, Lord and Lady Roberts.

Sister Welchman (now Mrs Watson) received her R.R.C. from General Sir George White at his official residency in Quetta on 1 August 1892, where ‘a gay throng assembled to do honour to the lady who had by hard work and self-denial won the blue ribbon of nursing in the field of battle’. Addressing the gathered assembly at the investiture, Sir George White said:

‘Mrs Watson: I have been given the privilege of presenting this cross to you as a token of Her Majesty the Queen Empress’ appreciation of the devotion shown by you to her sick and wounded soldiers in the Hazara campaign of 1888. It has often fallen to my lot to present decorations to English soldiers but, in the very nature of things, they have been chiefly for taking life. The cross that I have now the honour of presenting to you is an emblem of fairer fame, to commemorate dangers voluntarily faced and hardships endured for the sake of alleviating suffering and of saving life; and I am sure that all those gathered here tonight to show sympathy on the occasion of this ceremony will agree with me that England is not likely to fall from her proud position amongst the nations when her soldiers are as ready as they have ever proved themselves to face all dangers, and while her daughters even press forward to face the same trials, in order that they may be ready to extend help to those who are sick and suffering in their country’s cause. Self-abnegation, gentleness and kindness, under such conditions, are the highest forms of courage.’

Whilst serving in Mesopotamia in 1915, Lieutenant-Colonel Watson contracted an illness as a result of which he had to retire from the Army. He died in London in June 1917 but Mrs Watson, nonetheless lent valuable assistance to the British Red Cross during the Great War. She was among those invited to attend the Burial of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920. Edith Watson died in 1939.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, comprising:

(i) A congratulatory telegram from General Sir Frederick Roberts on the award of her R.R.C., dated at Meerut on 22 November 1891, and a letter from General Sir George White inviting her to his official residence for subsequent investiture, dated at Quetta on 20 July 1892, together with a newspaper account of said proceedings, taken from The Times of India.

(ii) A Memoir of Catherine Grace Loch, R.R.C., Senior Lady Superintendent, Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service for India, 360pp., Henry Frowde, London 1905, being a very detailed account of Miss Loch’s nursing service in India, 1888-1904, with pasted-in presentation letter ‘To Mrs. Watson. In memory of C. G. Loch. From her sisters, Xmas 1905’.

(iii) A large format photograph album recording Welchman’s early days in India, from her embarkation in the S.S. Malabar in February 1888 through until September 1889, rare images of the Black Mountain Expedition among them, including Field Hospitals at Chirmung and Ogni, approximately 70 images in total, green leather binding, one board detached, also part of spine, generally scuffed.

(iv) A copy of her marriage certificate to Lieutenant T. C. Watson, R.E., at Meerut in 1892, obtained from the India Office on 28 August 1917, together with a photograph taken at her wedding, and another, in later life, with her husband and child.

(v) A piece of wire from ‘the first zeppelin brought down’ at Cuffley, Essex, on 3 September 1916, mounted on Red Cross printed card, the reverse of which bears an inked stamp for the California House for Disabled Belgian Soldiers, Lancaster Gate, London.

(vi) An invitation in the name of ‘Mrs. Watson’ to the Burial of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, 11 November 1920, together with another invitation to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party on 25 July 1919, in the name of ‘Mrs. T. C. Watson, R.R.C.’