Women at war honoured
MEDALS awarded to women rarely appear at auction, but a Boer War and First World War group of nursing medals and badges awarded to nursing sister Ellen Mary Smyth piqued the interest of buyers at a sale of militaria and ethnographica.
The collection sold for £2,400 (plus buyer’s premium) against an estimate of £900 to £1,200 at Tennants Auctioneers.
Smyth was a founder member of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve established in 1902.
At the outbreak of the First World War, she left private nursing in Portugal to serve at home and in France, and she was mentioned in a dispatch from General Haig.
The medals include the Queen’s South Africa Medal and King’s South Africa Medal, 1914 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal, the Royal Red Cross second class (George V), and Queen Alexandra’s Boer War Cross, sold along
side further items relating to Ellen Smyth.
Also of note at the sale was an exceptionally rare Silver Cross of Rhodesia Pair, awarded posthumously to Second Lieutenant BM Thompson, of the Rhodesian African Rifles in 1978, which were sold together with a Rhodesian GSM awarded to his brother Tpr PA Thompson selling for £2,400.
Elsewhere in the sale a very rare Second World War cryptology silk, printed with a list of French codes, which sold for £800.
The silk square belonged to Joyce Mary Pimblott, who was a Cypher Officer for the Special Operations Executive handling communications with the French Resistance and British secret agents operating in France.
An impressive pair of Japanese battleship long-range binoculars, made by Nikko, sold for £5,000. These type of binoculars were used very effectively on the towers of Japanese battleships to spot enemy vessels.
In the ethnographica section, selling for £3,500, was an early 20th-century Australian Aboriginal parrying shield. It was formerly the property of Frances Dovell Gerrard, who was born in 1882, in Rapid Bay, South Australia, the daughter of a sheep station owner.
She was given the shield as a wedding present by the Aborigines who worked at her father’s Yoho Station.
The sale resulted in a total hammer price of £121,880 for 395 lots, with a sold rate of 90 per cent.
ACROSS
4. Empty talk (3,3) 7. Great elation (8) 8. Casualty (6)
10. Woo (5)
13. Hollow (4)
14. Male voice (4)
15. Tie fast (4)
16. Everything (3)
17. Send by post (4)
19. Man-eating giant (4) 21. Sugar pea (9)
23. Search for prey (4) 24. Additional (4)
26. A sack (3)
27. Small swelling (4) 29. Rotisserie (4)
32. Greek letter (4)
33. Willow (5)
34. Prance (6)
35. Swap (8)
36. Newspaper boss (6)
DOWN
1. Holy city (5)
2. Nozzle (5)
3. Twelve inches (4) 4. Place of safety (5) 5. Discretion (4)
6. Frozen spike (6) 9. Opposite of outdoor (6) 11. Aged (3)
12. Latin (5)
13. Predicament (7)
15. Large (3)
16. Skill (3)
18. Branched horn (6)
20. Estimate (5)
21. Drinking vessel (3)
22. Summit (3)
23. Expose to danger (6) 25. Cease living (3)
28. Complete (5)
30. Apron, informally (5) 31. Attempts (5)
32. Rush away (4)
33. Line in darts (4)