Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An inter-War A.R.R.C. group of four awarded to Nursing Sister Leonora C. Hooper, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service, who was heavily engaged in treating wounded servicemen on the First Day of the Gallipoli landings

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class (A.R.R.C.), G.V.R., silver and enamel, on lady’s bow riband; 1914-15 Star (Nursing Sister, L. C. Hooper, Q.A.R.N.N.S.); British War and Victory Medals (N. Sister L. C. Hooper Q.A.R.N.N.S.) 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 1930.

Leonora Chamberlain Hooper was born in Carisbrooke, Hampshire, on 24 August 1884. She trained for her nursing certificate at Northampton General Hospital from 1906 to 1909, and entered Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service as a Probationary Nursing Sister at Haslar on 4 September 1912. Transferred to Plymouth on 1 November 1913, she served aboard the Hospital Ship Soudan from 17 August 1914 to 4 September 1915. A converted transport vessel, Soudan played an important role in the Gallipoli Campaign, much of it documented by the S.M.O., Dr. G. Trevor Collingwood, M.V.O., in his publication Notes on the Work of a Naval Hospital Ship at the Dardanelles:

‘The first operations consisted in the destruction and demolition of the forts at the entrance, and between February 25 and March 19, 1915, 137 Naval casualties were received, after which there was a lull, only four wounded being sent on board. The next operations consisted in the landing of the Army supported by the Navy, under a very heavy fire from both sides of the Straits. From April 25 to May 1, 429 wounded were received, 352 Military and 30 Naval Ratings being admitted on the first day. After this, the Army having established a footing ashore, the “Soudan” withdrew to a safer anchorage.’

Returned to Plymouth, Hooper spent a further period of service aboard the Hospital Ship Berbice from 28 February 1917 to 3 March 1918, spending the final months of the Great War back at Haslar. She subsequently registered with the General Nursing Council as SRN No. 9564 on 27 October 1922 and was employed on an overseas tour to Malta in the early 1920s. Transferred to R.N. Sick Quarters at Ganges on 15 February 1928, she was awarded the A.R.R.C. and retired to pension on 15 July 1934. Taking employment as a lady’s companion, she is later recorded in 1939 as a resident of the Isle of Wight and serving as an A.R.P. warden.