Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Six: Miss Maude I. Smieton, later Lady Sanderson, Scottish Women’s Hospitals

British War and Victory Medals (M. I. Smieton); France, Third Republic, Croix de Guerre, bronze, reverse dated 1914-1918, with bronze star on riband; Medal of the Society of Aid to Military Wounded, silver; Cross of the Society of Aid to Military Wounded 1914-19, silver; together with the recipient’s Scottish Women’s Hospitals Medal 1914, bronze, unnamed, some corrosion to CdeG, otherwise good very fine (6) £600-£800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to Female Medics.

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Collection

Colonel D. G. B. Riddick Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 2006.

Maude Isolde Smieton was employed as an Orderly, Dispenser and Nurses Aide at the auxiliary hospitals at Villers Cotterets and Royaumont, France, from July 1916 to March 1919. In the Royaumont News Letter, 1968, she recalled: ‘I remember that last week at V.C. (Villers Cotterets). It was at the end of May just before we were to leave the hospital. I was seconded to the theatre and I was to spend all the time, day and night, as orderly with Inglis and some others. We could use only candles as we were under fire. I can see Inglis holding a candle at one side of the operating table and myself at the other, trying to keep our hand steady while loud explosions went on outside. The whole place was a shambles with men lying on the floor everywhere. It was so dark ... it was difficult to know whether a man was dead or alive. ... While Miss Ivens was operating, French soldiers burst into the place and asked us why we had not left as the town had been evacuated. We eventually got away next day, only just in time, as shells were coming over. ... The Americans came to our aid and helped with the wounded. Finally our ambulances from Royaumont came to our rescue. We were glad to see them. ...’ In a letter dated 23 May 1918, Smieton wrote of the last night at Villers Cotterets, ‘I shall never forget that night as long as I live; the sights were too appalling for words. I helped in the X-ray room. Three bombs were dropped quite close to the hospital; and a munition train in the station was bombed and went on fire. ... The doctoresses were simply splendid through it all. ... Seven amputations were done that night by the light of two candles’.

Miss Smieton married Harold Leslie Sanderson, D.C.M. in 1922. He subsequently served as Director of Rice, Ministry of Food, from 1941 to 1952, and was knighted in 1946. A member and official of the Royaumont and Villers Cotterets Association. Lady Sanderson died on 11 February 1974.