Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare Great War M.M. awarded to Miss Nellie Dewhurst, Voluntary Aid Detachment, attached First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, for her gallantry as an ambulance driver retrieving the wounded from a British ammunition dump on the outskirts of St. Omer, which had been set ablaze by enemy bombs during an air raid, 18 May 1918

Military Medal, G.V.R. (Miss N. Dewhurst. V.A.D.) nearly extremely fine
£2,000-£2,400

M.M. London Gazette 8 July 1918 (A joint citation with four members of the F.A.N.Y):

‘For gallantry and conspicuous devotion to duty when an ammunition dump had been set on fire by enemy bombs and the only available ambulance for the removal of wounded had been destroyed.

These ladies subsequently arrived with three ambulances and despite the danger arriving from various explosions, succeeded in removing all the wounded. Their conduct throughout was splendid.’

Nellie Dewhurst, a native of Shipton, Yorkshire, joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a chaffeuse in January 1918, aged 44. Posted to the St. Omer Convoy, she was employed as an ambulance driver until May 1919.

Her M.M.-winning exploits were enacted at an ammunition dump on the outskirts of St. Omer on the Arques road on the night of 18 May 1918, when she was attached to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Unit 8 in support of the British Second Army. In total, 16 women were decorated for their gallantry that night, the whole being presented with M.M. ribands by General Herbert Plumer at Blendecques on 3 July 1918; photographs of the ceremony are held by the Imperial War Museum and have been uploaded on YouTube (see link below) and the incident itself is mentioned by Janet Lee in War Girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK6x3XcGLzQ