Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Great War A.R.R.C. group of four awarded to Matron Agnes Midgeley, British Committee of the French Red Cross

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class (A.R.R.C.), G.V.R., silver and enamel, on lady’s bow riband; British War and Victory Medals (A. Midgeley. B.R.C. & St. J.J.); France, Third Republic, Medaille de La Reconnaissance, bronze, unnamed, edge nicks to VM, very fine and better (4) £400-£500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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A.R.R.C. London Gazette 1 January 1918.

Agnes Midgeley was born in Grimston, Yorkshire, on 20 February 1885, and took her nursing studies at the Anlaby Road Infirmary in Hull from January 1909 to January 1912. Volunteering for service with the British Committee of the French Red Cross at the outbreak of hostilities, she was soon posted as Sister to the Anglo-French Hospital at le Treport. This unit was founded and maintained by the Honourable Lady Murray and initially operated as a 65-bed hospital in a former golf hotel. It was later taken over by the British Red Cross in the summer of 1916 as a hospital for British Officers.

It was at around this time that Midgeley’s health began to weaken. After four operations on a septic arm she was evacuated home to England aboard the Hospital Ship Brighton on 25 January 1917. Remaining on sick leave for nearly four months, she returned to her former hospital - now known as No.10 B.R.C.S. - as Matron. Awarded the A.R.R.C. and noted in her Red Cross Record as recommended for the French decoration, she was demobilised on 7 January 1919.

Sold with the recipient’s copied Nursing Service Record and an extract from the Journal Officiel, dated 21 December 1919, which offers in the French language a citation to the French award: ‘Miss Midgley (sic) (Agnes) of British nationality, senior nurse in the hospitals of the British Red Cross and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, diligent work in the important functions of a senior nurse in the service of the sick and injured French people, rendered with a dedication to every moment’; and copied research, including a photographic image of the recipient.