TOPIC:

Picture courtesy of Spink

CBE 1st, civil;
QSA (3) Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (Civ. Surg. E.S. Crispin);
1914-15 Star (E.S. Crispin);
British War and Victory Medals, with MID (E.S. Crispin);
Defence Medal 1939-45;
Khedive's Sudan (1) Bahr-El-Ghazal 1900-02, unnamed as issued;
Khedive's Sudan (1) Darfur 1916, clasp loose on riband, unnamed as issued;
Egypt, Kingdom, Order of the Nile, Third Class neck Badge, 90mm including crown suspension x 65mm, silver-gilt, silver and enamel;
Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Order of Osmania, 4th Class breast Badge, 85mm including Star and Crescent suspension x 65mm, silver, silver-gilt, and enamel, with rosette upon riband

Provenance: Spink, November 2016, when offered for Sale by Order of the Family.

CBE London Gazette 24 September 1920 (Director, Soudan Medical Department, and Member of Governor-General's Council).

MID London Gazette 25 October 1916 (Sudan HQ) & 5 June 1919.

Egyptian Order of the Nile London Gazette 6 November 1917.

Turkish Order of Osmania London Gazette 28 June 1909 (Assistant Director of the Soudan Medical Department, Khartoum).

Edward Smyth Crispin was born at 6 Melbury Terrace, Marylebone in December 1874, the son of Alfred Trevor Crispin. Educated at Bradfield College and King's College, he qualified in 1898 and served as a volunteer Civil Surgeon during the Boer War and reportedly taken Prisoner of War (Medal & 3 clasps).

Crispin then served upon the Bahr-El-Ghazal Expedition, a party into the virtually unknown region under Miralai Sparkes Bey. The party consisted of 5 British Officers and 2 British Sergeants, 11 Egyptian Officers, an interpreter, a clerk, 84 regulars, 266 irregulars and 216 wives and children. They also took 100 men and women rescued from slavery in Omdurman to be returned to their native tribes. The expedition left Khartoum on 29 November 1900 heading south on the White Nile and boarded on three steamers (Zafir, Hafir and Tawfikieh).

Crispin was appointed to the Sudan Medical Service, as Principle Medical Officer to the Egyptian Army, 1902 and appointed Ministry of Quarantine Officer during the construction of Port Sudan, 1904-06. He was Assistant Director of Medical Department, Sudan, 1909 and married Edith Walker Wright, who died in childbirth in Port Sudan in February 1913. He was Director of the Medical Department, Sudan, 1915-22, also serving as President of the Central Sanitary Board.

During the Great War aboard the Hospital Ship Grantully Castle off Gallipoli and was present in the Lines of Communication during the Darfur Expedition 1916, earning a Mention in the Despatches and being awarded the Order of the Nile. Appointed to be a Member of the Governor General's Council in 1919 he retired in 1922, having completed over twenty years' service in total.

He was married to his second wife, Evelyn Cadogan (widow of Colonel Cadogan) in 1926 and was listed as an Agent to Lord Montagu of Beaulie in 1926. His wife Evelyn left him and married Lord O'Hagan in 1935 and during the Second World War Crispin served as an Air Raid Warden in London in 1940-42. Crispin died at sea coming home from South Africa aboard the S.S. Warwick Castle on 12 March 1958 and was buried at sea, his obituary being published in the British Medical Journal. His work The Prevention and Treatment of Disease in the Tropics. A handbook for officials and travellers compiled chiefly for the use of officials in the Sudan, was published by Charles Griffin in 1912.

A Special Collection of 54 images taken during the construction of Port Sudan, South Sudan and Egypt by Crispin are in the collection of Durham University Library (GB 0033 SAD, refers), copies included on a CD with the Lot.

Pictures courtesy of Noonan's

KBE (Military);
CB (Military) b/b converted, s/g, hallmarked London 1890;
CMG, silver-gilt and enamels;
QSA (1) Cape Colony (H. M. W. Gray. Surgeon.) officially engraved naming;
1914 Star (Major H. M. W. Gray. R.A.M.C.);
BWM and VM with MID (Col. H. M. W. Gray.)

KBE LG 3 June 1919.
CB LG 1 January 1916.
CMG LG 3 June 1918.

In The Lancet of 18 November 1899, there appeared the following notice: “Under the auspices of Sir James Sivewright KCMG, who was recently entertained to dinner in Edinburgh by the South African Students' Union, an ambulance corps chiefly composed of Edinburgh medical students connected with the Transvaal has been formed. A portion left Edinburgh on Saturday night for South Africa (Nov. 1899). They will be joined in London by Dr. and Mrs. Gray, Aberdeen, and several nurses. It is said that Sir James Sivewright is to pay the expense of equipment and that a British steamship line will convey the students and material free of cost." ‘There were to be two detachments under the direction of Dr Gray, assistant-surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen. The one group, in charge of Dr Gray himself, included his wife, a British student named Alan Johnson, and three South Africans, L. Fourie, G. H. van Zyl and D. Luther. The other group was in charge of Dr A.C. Neethling, a South African who had recently qualified and was working as a house-surgeon at the Bradford Infirmary. With him were four medical students, A. J. du Toit, W. Walker Hauman, C. T. Möller and J. L.Schoemann, and a nurse, a Mrs. Bamford. They took leave of their fellow students with promises to return soon and complete their interrupted studies, and on 15 November the James Sivewright Ambulance sailed in the Moravian from the Royal Albert Dock, charged to report at Cape Town to the Senior Commanding Officer and from there to 'make their way to the Boer lines by whatever route he may direct'.

The Moravian had hardly left England when a storm of abuse broke about Sivewright's head. It could not have been forgotten that until 1898 he was a member of Hofmeyer's Afrikaner Bond in the Cape Parliament. The sympathies of the Bondsmen were known to lie with their fellow Afrikaners in the Transvaal and, although Kruger regarded this support as ineffectual, it seemed little less than treasonable in the eyes of many of Her Majesty's subjects further away in Britain. Sivewright was accused in the press of being a traitor and sending aid to the 'enemies of his native country’. With a flourish of self righteous indignation he protested his neutrality and immediately offered Her Majesty's Government his 4 large properties in Hottentots Holland, to be used as convalescent homes for wounded British officers!

On 16 December 1899 the Moravian docked in Cape Town and the Sivewright reported to the Commanding Officer, impatient to be gone on their journey northwards. A telegram was sent to President Kruger, offering their services to the sick and wounded. The reply was startling. President Kruger declined their offer, stating that he did not ‘receive such gifts from an enemy’

The Afrikaners in the party, no less determined to reach their destination but scenting trouble, kept in the background and urged Dr. Gray to approach Sir Alfred Milner himself and ask for safe conduct to the Boer lines. No details of this interview are available, but the outcome was disappointing. It may be guessed that Milner disapproved thoroughly of the entire scheme and found in Kruger's telegram confirmation of his own opinion of the Boers. In the end they abandoned their attempts to travel up through the Cape Colony and were given passages on board the Congella, bound for Delagoa Bay.

On 26 December the Sivewright Ambulance, their optimism revived, disembarked at Lourenco Marques and presented themselves to Mr. Pott, the Transvaal Consul.

Their arrival had evidently been anticipated - and not alone by Mr. Pott. According to Alan Johnson, one of the 3 British members of the corps, this gentleman ‘told them curtly that they were not wanted, declaring that there were no wounded to require their care’. Dr. Gray's consternation may be imagined, the more so as he began to suspect that the Consul's message was directed at the British element of the corps. Matters were not improved, either, by the discovery that Gray was carrying letters from friends to British officers in the Transvaal.

Again he saw Mr. Pott, explained the purpose of their mission, and assured him of the goodwill that had launched this venture which now, at the last moment, appeared to be in danger of floundering. The reply was the same as before: The Transvaal did not desire any assistance from Sir James Sivewright and would reimburse him all expenses.

Meanwhile the Afrikaner medical students had not been still. Some of them had already made contact with a Boer agent operating in Lourenco Marques and learned that they would be allowed across the border if they made their way to Resanna Garcia. When negotiations between Dr. Gray and Mr. Pott broke down, Dr. Neethling acted, promptly. The Afrikaners had no intention of turning back; if they could-get through on their own they would do so. Dr. Gray, however, regarding such action to be totally 'at variance with Sir James Sivewright's intentions’ refused to hand over the surgical equipment. A telegram was sent to Sir James without further delay. His reply was unequivocal: All the equipment was to be handed over to Dr. Neethling and he and the other Afrikaners should proceed to Pretoria.

Whether, as Alan Johnson later contended, the object of the Transvaal Government was merely to get rid of the British members of the expedition, cannot be known for certain. Against this there is evidence that those who did reach the Transvaal - including the nurse, Mrs. Bamford - did so not through any official channel but on their own initiative. Nevertheless, a tirade broke when the news reached London. The Times' correspondent stated openly that the expedition had been used ‘as a cloak to smuggle into the Transvaal men with Boer sympathies who would otherwise have been stopped’. In ‘a leading West End club', rumour flared into open accusation: an armed group of Afrikaners had cheated their way into the Transvaal to join the Boer forces, and Sir James Sivewright had been their dupe! The latter denied the charge vehemently and offered £1,000 to the Lord Mayor's Fund if it could be proved. In any case, he pointed out, as. Cape Colonials they were all British subjects and if caught with guns would be treated as rebels!

Of Dr. and Mrs. Gray and Alan Johnson little more was heard. Sad and disillusioned they made their way back to Durban and offered their services to the Imperial Army.

On 2 January 1900 Dr. Neethling and the rest of his group reached Pretoria. As individuals they were welcomed with open arms; as the Sivewright Ambulance they were still viewed with suspicion. By now, however, they had learnt enough about international diplomacy to sidestep any further entanglement with the Transvaal Government. They quietly dropped their title and joined Het Transvaalsche Roode Kruis as a single detachment under Dr. Neethling. By the end of January they were at the Natal front serving as a field ambulance to one of General Lukas Meyer's commandos.’ (Extracts taken from The James Sivewright Ambulance, S.A. Medical Journal, March 1966). Henry M’Ilree Williamson Gray was born in the Parish of Oldmachar in 1870, son of Mr A. R. Gray, merchant, of Aberdeen. He received his early education at Merchiston School, where in 1888 he became captain of the school. From 1888 to 1891 he was in business in Aberdeen, and from 1891 to 1895 he studied medicine at Aberdeen University, graduating M.B., C.M., with honours in 1895. After graduation he spent a year as house surgeon in Sir Alexander Ogston’s wards in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. For a year, 1896-97, he studied at Bonn, Leipzig, Berlin and London, giving his attention chiefly to surgery, but also studying gynaecology and diseases of the skin. Upon his return to Aberdeen in 1897 he began practise as a surgeon, and in the autumn of that year was appointed assistant anaesthetist to the Royal Infirmary. A year later he was appointed assistant surgeon, and in 1904 obtained the the post of surgeon and lecturer in clinical surgery to the University. He had been admitted F.R.C.S., Edinburgh, in 1902. Sir Henry Gray had a brilliant war record, and was decorated with the CB and CMG, and created a knight in 1919. In November 1899 he went to South Africa with Sir James Sivewright's Ambulance, a previous offer of his services to the Army Medical Department having been declined as at that time the necessity for further medical assistance was not apparent. After the ambulance was dispersed he served with the South African Field Force until he was invalided home in 1900. He was awarded the South African Medal with Clasp.

In the early stages of the European War, Sir Henry went on active service and he was afterwards appointed one of the consulting surgeons to the British Expeditionary Force, with the honorary rank of Colonel. He was four times mentioned in dispatches, and received the C.M.G in 1918. In August 1918 he accepted an appointment as assistant to Colonel Jones, who had charge of all the orthopaedic hospitals in England and Scotland. His appointment in 1923 as surgeon-in-chief at the Royal Victorian Hospital at Montreal ended abruptly in resignation and controversy arising from local opposition and ill-feeling. Sir Henry was invited to do some teaching work at M’Gill University, but refused to do so under one of his subordinates. He eventually consented to give a certain amount of lectures without payment. However, his connection with M’Gill was terminated in 1925, with Sir Arthur Currie, the Principal of M’Gill, alleging that the bitter feud which was raging around him was ruining the esprit de corps of the university. After his resignation a large body of opinion supported him. Sir Henry Gray died at Montreal on 6 October 1938. Sold with original warrants of appointment for the KBE, CB, and CMG, together with BRCS Certificate in recognition of valuable services rendered during the War 1914-19, newspaper obituary and a quantity of other research.

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

E&W Africa 1887 (1) 1897-98 (Asst. C. Surgeon D. J. M. Conacher, G.C. Constby:) officially impressed naming;
QSA (3) Cape Colony, Paardeberg, South Africa 1901 (D. J. Menzies-Conacher. Surgeon.) officially engraved naming

Civil Surgeon D J Menzies-Conacher served as Assistant Chief Surgeon with the Gold Coast Constabulary during operations in West Africa from 1897-98.

He was Civil Surgeon attached to 3rd (Highland) Brigade Field Hospital in South Africa from 13 January 1900.

He was taken prisoner when a convoy of 50 wagons, proceeding from Rhenoster to Heilbron, under Lieutenant Corballis, Reserve of Officers, with 160 details of the Highland Brigade, surrendered at Zwavel Krans, near Heilbron, on 4 June 1900. ‘On the 13th June Civil Surgeon Connacher (sic), who had been taken prisoner with the convoy, was returned to us by President Steyn, and told us its story. He said that the convoy, with an escort of 160 infantry, had left the railway near Roodevaal on the evening of the 2nd June, and had trekked (with one long halt) till eight on the following morning; then, after halting till one in the afternoon, had marched till five, when it had outspanned to the north of the Elands Spruit, near Zwaal Krantz (i.e., nine miles from the railway and fourteen from Heilbron on the Prospect-Heilbron road). There, seeing that there were Boers to the right and front, the commanding officer had sent runners to Heilbron and Vredefort for help, and had extended the men and dug rifle-pits.

They were not molested during the night, but at seven o'clock on the morning of the 4th the Boers sent in a message under a white flag calling on the officer commanding the party to surrender. As the enemy was 4,000 strong, with several guns, he agreed to do this, only stipulating that the mails which he was bringing for the division should be forwarded to Heilbron. This condition was not fulfilled, as the mails were all burnt. Surgeon Connacher said that before leaving Roodevaal the Commandant and the officer commanding the convoy had discussed my telegram to the effect that I considered that the proposed escort was inadequate.’ (The Work of the Ninth Division refers).

When the proceeding of the Court of Enquiry on Lieutenant Corballis were received at the War Office and had been reviewed, it was decided by the then Commander-in-Chief that, in view of his conduct in the matter, Lieutenant Corballis should receive neither the South African medal nor the war gratuity.

Surgeon Menzies-Conacher, meanwhile, was left sick at Reitz on 7 July 1900, and returned to England later that year on termination of his engagement.

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

CB Civil, b/b, 18 carat gold, hallmarked London 1887, complete with gold ribbon bar;
QSA (4) Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg (Dr. Kendal Franks, Consulting Surgn:) officially engraved naming;
KSA (2) (Doctor Kendal Franks att. to R.A.M.C.) officially engraved naming

Together with a very fine 18 carat gold and enamel, diamond-set Abercorn Masonic Lodge presentation jewel, hallmarked London 1902, approx 20.9g with old cut diamond approx 35 points, the reverse inscribed ‘Presented to R.W.B. Dr. Kendall Franks C.B. by his friends in the Abercorn Lodge 1903’, fitted with gold rings and hinged retaining clip for wearing.

CB London Gazette 19 April 1901: ‘Kendal Franks, Esq., M.D.’

MID London Gazette 8 February 1901: ‘Mr Watson Cheyne and Mr Kendal Franks, M.B., F.R.C.S.I., Consulting Surgeons, who have accompanied the Army, have rendered invaluable service by their advice and assistance to the Medical Officers. They have been unwearying in their work among the wounded and sick, and, humanly speaking, many a valuable life has been saved by their skill.’

MID London Gazette 16 April 1901: ‘Many thanks are also due to the distinguished consulting surgeons who have come out to this country, and by their advice and experience materially aided the Royal Army Medical Corps. The services rendered by... Mr. Kendal Franks... were of incalculable value.’

Kendal Franks was born in Dublin on 8 February 1851, the fourth son of Robert Fergusson Franks, a barrister of Jerpoint Hill in County Kilkenny, and his wife, Henriette Bushe, daughter of Charles Kendal Bushe, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and a prominent Irish aristocrat.

Franks entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he had a distinguished career, obtaining the degree of B.A. in 1872 and the M.B. in 1875. After this he became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and went on to Leipzig to complete his medical studies. On his return in 1876, he was appointed a demonstrator in anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons and surgeon to the Dublin Throat and Ear Hospital. In the same year he obtained the M.D. and became a member of the senate of the University of Dublin. This was followed in 1878 by the Fellowship of the Irish College of Surgeons and in the same year he became senior surgeon to the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin. Here he pioneered in Ireland the implementation of Lister’s principles of antisepsis and asepsis. He also became surgeon-in-ordinary to the lord-lieutenant and vice-president of the Irish College of Surgeons.

Franks married twice: in 1879 Charlotte Selina Greene, sister of Sir William Conyngham Greene, later the British Agent in the Transvaal Republic; two years after her death in 1883 he married Gertrude Jane Butt, who contracted tuberculosis, and was advised to come to South Africa. Forced to abandon a brilliant professional career in Ireland, Franks and his family arrived in South Africa in 1896, and settled at Beaufort West, but his wife died the same year. Franks decided to remain in South Africa and moved to Johannesburg in 1897 where he was very successful and enjoyed a tremendous reputation.

Appointed one of the five consulting surgeons to the British forces during the Second Anglo-Boer War, and attached by Lord Roberts to his headquarters staff, he accompanied Roberts all through the campaign. He was present at the engagements at Paardeberg (27 February 1900) and Driefontein (10 March 1900), and at the entry into Bloemfontein (13 March 1900), Johannesburg (31 May 1900), and Pretoria (5 June 1900). He journeyed back to England with Lord Roberts, and in 1901 was gazetted a C.B. (Civil) for his services, having been twice mentioned in dispatches. On his return to South Africa in 1901, he was again appointed consulting surgeon to the British forces, and shortly afterwards undertook, at the special request of Lord Kitchener, an inspection of all the concentration camps; his reports on these were published in the Blue Books, and extracted at length by the London Times and other papers. He was again mentioned in dispatches and in 1904 was knighted for his services.

At the conclusion of the war he was made a nominee member of the first Transvaal Medical Council, but failed to obtain nomination to the second Council. He gave evidence to the Financial Relations Commission of the Transvaal Colony in 1905, outlining a hospital scheme for the Witwatersrand, with the Johannesburg Hospital as centre. He drew attention to the unsatisfactory provision made for public health in the Transvaal before Union and also under the act of Union (1909), as well as to the need for a medical school in Johannesburg.

Using his influence to convert the Witwatersrand Medical Council into a branch of the British Medical Association, he became the first president of the South African committee of this association, and laid the foundation stones of the South African Institute for Medical Research in 1912. In the same year he acted as president of the 1912 South African Medical Congress which was held in Johannesburg. He continued to advocate the establishment of a medical school there, and in 1916 chaired a meeting of registered medical practitioners of the Transvaal which was convened to discuss this matter.

Franks held the post of surgeon to the Johannesburg Hospital, consulting surgeon to the Central South African Railways, and medical director of the African Life Assurance Society. In the Johannesburg of his day, when surgeons combined surgery with general practice, he was the first "specialist" surgeon, and was considered a world expert in renal surgery.

He made valuable contributions to medical literature, and several publications appeared under his name, such as Addison’s disease (1882), On spontaneous dislocation of the hip (1883), A case of cerebral cyst (1888), and Professor Koch’s treatment of tuberculosis (1891). He also contributed many articles to various medical journals, including the Transvaal Medical Journal and the South African Medical Journal.

Apart from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, he was a Fellow of the Medico Chirurgical Society of London, of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, and of the Royal Society of South Africa.

He was said to be a skilful water-colourist. For the last few years of his life he suffered considerable ill health which was due to diabetes, and became a confirmed invalid. His death occurred at his residence “Kilmurry”, Klein Street, Hospital Hill.



Source: The Graphic

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (1) South Africa 1902 (Dental Surgeon E. Mosely.) officially impressed naming, ‘Dental’ officially corrected.

SA02 listed WO100/226p89 but name crossed through with a note saying 'No rolls yet received'. Rank is Civil Surgeon.

Listed for SA02 as a Dental Surgeon on 226p105:

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (2) Cape Colony, South Africa 1901 (Civ: Dental Surg: A. Berlyn.) officially impressed naming.

“Mr A. Berlyn, LDS, is appointed Dental Surgeon to the troops at the Base, with effect from 7 Feb 1901, at the rate of £1 per diem and rations.” (Lines of Communications, Cape Town, 12 February 1901, refers).

Abraham Berlyn is featured in the 1913 edition of Who’s Who in South Africa with a photograph and short biography as follows:

‘BERLYN, Abraham, LDS, FPS, Bronze Medal in Dental Surgery; served in late Boer War, attached RAMC, Queen’s Medal, 3 clasps (sic); first Dental Surgeon gazetted in Army Orders; Dental Surgeon; b. 7th Oct., 1869, at Birmingham; 2nd s. of Moses Berlyn. Educ. Queen’s College of Medicine and Mason Coll. of Science, Birmingham; m. 1907 Susannah A. Willdaneh, Newlands, Cape Town; 1 dau. Practised in Birmingham, England 1891-6. Author of original treatise on the care and treatment of children’s teeth. Came to South Africa in 1896. Hobby: Microscopical work. Address: 29, Downing Street, King William’s Town.’

WO100/227p23