PREVIEW: ORDERS DECORATIONS, MEDALS & MILITARIA: 19 JUNE

Some of the most impressive acts of bravery and self-sacrifice come not in battle but in fighting a hidden enemy: disease.

A prime example of this was the volunteer force who embarked on a cleansing operation to stamp out bubonic plague during a severe outbreak in Hong Kong in 1894.

The virulent epidemic broke out in early May and, recognising the danger, the Governor, Sir William Robinson, K.C.M.G., gathered all the resources available to him, both military and civil, to combat the threat. Special bye-laws were quickly passed and implemented, and temporary plague hospitals were opened.

The task of finding, isolating, disinfecting and cleansing infected households was directed by Mr F. H. May, the Captain Superintendent of Police and supervised by Mr J. H. Crook the Sanitary Surveyor. A measure of protection for those helping was thought to be smoking.

To supplement the local authorities and native labour, Officers and men of the Shropshire Light Infantry and Royal Engineers were drawn in to help with the cleansing operations, and Volunteers for house-to-house visitations were sought amongst the civil population.

The population in infected areas were removed and infected houses were rigorously cleansed - floors disinfected, walls, woodwork and furniture thoroughly lime-washed, and bedding, old clothing, old woodwork and general rubbish burnt. Elsewhere, doctors, nurses and ancillary staff worked heroically amongst the sick and dying.

One of those who stepped into the breach was Hilgrove Clement Nicolle Esq., Auditor of Hong Kong. He was born at St. Helier, Jersey, on 19 July 1855, and educated at Victoria College, Jersey. After a spell employed at the London and Westminster Bank in London, he joined the Foreign Office in February 1880, and was appointed an assistant auditor in Cyprus. He was advanced Auditor General of Cyprus in 1883 and was sometime Mayor of Nicosia. On 22 January 1890 he was appointed Auditor of Hong Kong, and soon after arrived in the Colony.

Nicolle volunteered as a house-to-house visitor during the Plague and was specially mentioned by the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board for his ‘splendid work, perseverance, and spirit of self-sacrifice’.

Doubtless he would have followed the official guidelines in helping to combat the spread of the Plague (which appear startingly similar to those issued during the COVID epidemic):

“1. Keep separate clothes for working in, which should be changed on returning off duty and kept hung up in the air and sun when not in use.

2. On returning off duty wash the hands in water and Jeyes’ fluid (1 in 20), and if possible, take a bath of the same solution.

3. Also rinse the mouth out with Condy’s fluid and water (one teaspoonful to one quart of water).

4. Saturate the handkerchief with Eucalyptus oil when going on duty and apply it frequently to the nose if in an infected house.

5. Smoke.”

Despite all the precautions taken, over 2,500 people, mainly Chinese, contracted the plague, with 2,317 deaths attributed to the plague, a fatality rate of over 90%.

The plague subsided with the arrival of cold weather, with restrictions being lifted in early September, and on 28 September 1894 a public meeting was held at City Hall for the purpose of considering what steps should be taken to recognise the services rendered by the community in combating the plague; ultimately it was decided that a medal should be awarded, in both gold and silver.

Nicolle was specially mentioned by the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board “for the splendid work that he did in house-to-house visitations, and for his perseverance in it, and deserves the greatest credit for the spirit of self-sacrifice with which he worked in aid of the Sanitary Inspectors and the Police’ (Minutes of the Committee, 18 September 1894). He was several times mentioned in the Hong Kong Daily Press.

For his services his name was forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and he was awarded the Hong Kong Plague Medal in gold. He was subsequently appointed to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong in March 1900, before taking up the appointment of Treasurer of Ceylon in February 1904.

Having put himself in such peril to save others and survived, it was cruel irony that he was to die of typhoid in Colombo, Ceylon, on 11 December 1908.

No complete medal roll for the Hong Kong Plague Medal is known to exist, with much of the Colony’s archival material having been destroyed during the Second World War; consequently, the numbers of medals awarded is a matter of conjecture.

Mr. F. Pridmore, in an article for the Spink Numismatic Circular, August 1954, states that 137 gold medals were awarded to civilians, together with 13 being awarded to the officers of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry; Jerome Platt, Maurice Jones, and Arleen Platt in The Whitewash Brigade again estimate that 137 gold medals were awarded to civilians, and increase the number awarded to the military garrison to 46, as well as giving a total of 636 silver medals awarded.

The survival rate of gold medals is likely to be a small fraction of this amount, with many likely to have been scrapped for the value of the gold content, and this theory is borne out by the low number of medals sighted or confirmed to exist, with Platt et al identifying only 20 known extant awards in gold (or just over 10% of the total produced), compared to well over a third (219 out of 636) of the silver medals having been sighted.

Now the Hong Plague Medal in gold awarded to H.C. Nicolle Esq appears in the 19 June sale and is expected to fetch £10,000-14,000.

• The ‘London Blitz’ George Cross group of seven to Lieutenant Jack Easton, G.C., R.N.V.R. sold for £110,000 in the 10 April auction.