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The trio to William Barrett sold for a hammer price of GBP 2,000. Total GBP 2,576. R 58,580. AUD 5,100. NZD 5,620. CAD 4,630. USD 3,210. EUR 2,940.

Pictures courtesy of Noonan's

Transport Medal (1) S. Africa 1899-1902 (G. G. Hay.);
1914-15 Star (Capt. G. G. Hay S.A.M.C.);
[ BWM ];
Bilingual Victory Medal 1914-19 (Capt. G. G. Hay.)



George Gray Hay was born in Grantown-on-Spey Scotland, in 1876 and studied Medicine at Edinburgh University, graduating MB (Surgery) in 1899. He signed up as a Surgeon in the S.S. Jelunga, a troop transport, carrying troops to the Boer War; passengers on his first trip included two Battalions of the Rifle Brigade and Generals Gough and Dawnay; he then spent the rest of the War as an H.M. Colonial Medical Adviser at the Pinetown ‘Burgher Camp’ for Prisoners of War in Natal.

Following the cessation of hostilites, Hay settled in South Africa at Louis Trichardt, becoming not only the settlement’s first Doctor, but also ‘Resident Justice of the Peace, Police Surgeon, Burgomaster, Waterbailiff, Pound Master, Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Repatriation Storekeeper, &c.’ (quoted from the memoir that he wrote). He was elected to the Town Council and later became Mayor of Louis Trichardt.

In February 1906 Hay joined the Northern Mounted Rifles, Transvaal Volunteers, with the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant. He was promoted Surgeon Captain in 1913, and appointed to command the 6th Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance, and served with them during the Great War in the South West Africa campaign from 14 November 1914 to 16 July 1915, when he was released from Service. He died on 1 January 1938.

Hay was the author of a number of pamphlets on the prevention of malaria which were issued separately in Dutch and English by the South African Anti-Malarial Association in Johannesburg. These included ‘Fever on the farm, some common causes (1914), First measures in malaria prevention for farmers and settlers (1915 revised ed. 1924), and ‘Malaria prevention on active service. Notes for the information and guidance of the Union troops on service in Central and East Africa’ (1916). An article ‘Amaa’ [or alastrim, a specific contagious eruptive fever resembling smallpox] was posthumously published in the South African Medical Journal in 1938.