Beschreibung:

An extremely rare Black Mountain expedition R.R.C. group of three awarded to Sister Edith Welchman, Indian Medical Service, afterwards the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel T. C. Watson, V.C., Royal Engineers: among other duties, Miss Welchman undertook a two day journey with her senior, Miss Loch, an Indian soldier and a groom, camping out at night in hostile country - luckily, she and Miss Loch felt relatively secure, having been issued with revolvers, with which they ‘rather distinguished themselves at fifteen yards’ during instruction under Dr. Fawcett Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, on Lady’s riband bow, in its Garrard & Co. fitted case of issue; India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Hazara 1888 (Sister E. Welchman, Indian Nursing Service); British Red Cross Society Medal 1914-18, together with a Queen Mary’s Nursing Guild enamelled badge, and Royal Engineers’ sweetheart brooch, in silver and enamel, with pastes, good very fine (5) £3000-3600 Footnote One of three R.R.Cs awarded for the Black Mountain Expedition and one of five India General Service Medal with Hazara 1888 clasp to members of the Indian Nursing Service; see Norman Gooding’s Honours & Awards to Women to 1914, for roll verification and further details. R.R.C. London Gazette 27 October 1891. The Military Nursing Service of India was instituted in 1888, when Lady Roberts, wife of the C.-in-C., drew attention to the need of skilled nursing for the British soldier in that country and the Government of India consented to the formation of an Indian Nursing Service. Accordingly, in March of that year, a band of eight nurses under the superintendence of Misses Loch and Oxley arrived in India - Miss Loch with five nurses, including Sister Edith Welchman, went to the military hospital in Rawalpindi and Miss Oxley with three sisters went to Bangalore. There they worked to establish a modern nursing system, overcoming prejudice, primitive conditions and the shortcomings of the untrained staff on hand. However, Miss Loch, as Senior Superintendent, received many letters of encouragement from Florence Nightingale who took a particular interest in the progress of the Service. And the detachment under Miss Loch became ‘blooded’ almost at once, for in September of the same year her band of nurses was ordered to Abbottabad, and thence the base hospital for the Black Mountain Expedition at Oghi, where, Miss Loch observed, ‘our troops having gone over the crest of the mountain, we could not see them but we heard shots and saw the smoke of burning villages’. Having then treated our wounded, Miss Loch and Sister Welchman were ordered to Darband, having to undertake a two day journey through hostile country, in the company of an Indian soldier and groom - Dr. Fawcett giving them a crash course in revolver shooting prior to their departure, an activity at which they appear to have excelled. But their subsequent work at Darband was exhausting, their patients including Colonel Crookshank, shot through the leg, and Mr. Cleeve, shot in the neck. For these services, the nursing sisters were awarded the Medal & clasp and, three years later, Miss Loch and two others, including Sister Welchman, were awarded the Royal Red Cross 1st Class [see Dix Noonan Webb, 13 September 2012, for Miss Loch’s R.R.C. and India General Service Medal]. In her diary entry for 28 January 1889, Loch writes, ‘I have just been writing a long letter to Miss Nightingale in answer to one of hers. She does write such charming letters full of encouragement and also lots of questions about our work ... so you see she is very well up in all that goes on. I believe we shall have medals for the Black Mountain, which will be very jolly.’ In February 1892 Edith married, at Meerut, Lieutenant Thomas Colclough Watson, R.E., who was to win the Victoria Cross at Bilot, on the North West Frontier, in 1897. After the award of Watson’s V.C., the only other couple to have the joint distinction of V.C. and R.R.C.