Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War ‘Balkans theatre’ A.R.R.C. group of four awarded to Sister Mary M. L. Johns, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class (A.R.R.C.), G.V.R., silver and enamel, on lady’s bow riband, in Garrard & Co. case of issue; British War and Victory Medals (Sister M. M. L. Johns.); France, Third Republic, Medaille des Epidemies en argent (M. L. Johns 1919) the case to first a little worn, nearly extremely fine (4) £500-£700

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

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A.R.R.C. London Gazette 3 June 1919.

France, Medaille des Epidemies London Gazette 21 July 1919.

The French award was initially graded as ‘en vermeil’. The correction appears in the London Gazette of 4 September 1919.

Mary Maud Lilian Johns was born in Chester on 17 January 1881, the daughter of a tea and provision merchant. Educated at the Ladies School, Rhyl, she trained as a nurse at the Borough Fever Hospital in Ipswich from 1908 to 1910. She then transferred to the Bethnal Green Infirmary from 1910 to 1913, before engaging in private nursing.

Accepted for service with the Q.A.I.M.N.S.R. on 30 December 1915, Johns was mobilised on 10 January 1916 and sent to Salonika with No. 49 General Hospital on 20 April 1917. Here she would have been heavily engaged in helping wounded men and those suffering from malaria and other diseases. Transferred to No. 82 General Hospital in Constantinople, she served as part of the Army of the Black Sea from 24 July 1920 to 13 January 1921.

Returned home to England, Johns transferred to District Nursing and was selected for the permanent reserve; she was removed in 1934 having failed to report.

Sold with the recipient’s Q.A.I.M.N.S.R. cape badge, hallmarked Birmingham 1915.