Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War ‘Mesopotamia Operations’ M.C. group of eight awarded to Colonel C. H. N. Baker, Indian Medical Service

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved ‘Captain C. H. N. Baker. I.M.S.’; 1914 Star (Lt. C. H. N. Baker, I.M.S.); British War and Victory Medals, with copy M.I.D. oak leaves (Capt. C. H. N. Baker.); India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1930-31 (Maj. C. H. N. Baker, I.M.S.); India General Service 1936-39, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1936-37 (Lt-Col. C. H. N. Baker. I.M.S.); Jubilee 1935, privately engraved ‘Lt. Col. C. H. N. Baker.’; Coronation 1937, unnamed as issued, mounted as worn; together with the related miniature awards, these similarly mounted, generally good very fine (8) £700-£900

M.C. London Gazette 25 August 1917.

M.I.D. London Gazette 10 April 1917.

Charles Henry Neil Baker was born in Dinapore on 18 June 1887 and educated at the University of Edinburgh. Upon completion of his medical education at the Royal Army Medical College (Aldershot) in September 1914, he was admitted to the Indian Medical Service as Lieutenant on probation and was sent with the 1st Indian Expeditionary Force to France, initially as Medical Officer to the 59th Scinde Rifles. Proceeding to Mesopotamia and awarded the Military Cross, his valuable contribution treating the sick and wounded was further recognised in April 1917 in the Despatch of Lieutenant-General Sir F. S. Maude.

Returned home to India, Baker married Miss Beatrice Alice Nowell at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Calcutta, in 1924, and was later appointed Commanding Officer of the Indian Military Hospital at Risalpur. Advanced Lieutenant-Colonel, Baker was named in The Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore) on 2 February 1934 as President of the Committee of Adjustment at the Indian Military Hospital in Lahore. In 1938, the same newspaper recorded him as Health Officer for the Ferozepore Cantonment; during this appointment he proved particularly forthright in his criticism of hygiene associated with the beef and mutton markets. Appointed Colonel in 1936, Baker retired to Sandown on the Isle of Wight and died on 1 February 1956.

Sold with the recipient’s original M.I.D. certificate and group photographic image.