The C.M.G., C.V.O. group of nine awarded to Colonel C. E. Harrison, Grenadier Guards, Honorary Surgeon to King Edward VII

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; The Royal Victorian Order, C.V.O., Commander’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, reverse numbered, ‘C483’; Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, dated reverse, 1 clasp, Tel-el-Kebir (Surgeon Charles Harrison, 2/Grenr. Gds.); 1914-15 Star (Col.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Col.); Coronation 1902, silver; Coronation 1911, silver; Khedive’s Star 1882, unnamed, good very fine (9) £1100-1300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Medical Services formed by Colonel D.G.B. Riddick.

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Charles Edward Harrison was born in Kensington on 19 October 1852, the son of Surgeon-Major John Harrison, Grenadier Guards. He was educated at Wellington College, St. Bart’s Hospital and the London University and qualified as a M.B. and a F.R.C.S. Entering the Army in 1874, he was appointed a medical officer in the Grenadier Guards the following year and served with them as a Surgeon in the Egypt Campaign of 1882. He was promoted to Surgeon-Major in the Grenadier Guards in August 1885 and Brigade Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel in the Brigade of Foot Guards in November 1891. Awarded the Brevet of Colonel in March 1907, he was placed on Retired Pay on 19 October 1909. Harrison was Medical Officer in Charge of the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, 1905-09 and was Honorary Surgeon to the King, 1907-1909 - reportedly performing an operation on the same for peritonitis. He was awarded the C.V.O. in 1909 ‘On the occasion of the visit of King Edward VII to the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, Millbank, for the dedication of the Hospital Chapel’. He was Officer Commanding the 1st London General Hospital 1909 and Assistant Director of Medical Services, 2nd London Division, Territorial Force 1912. During the Great War he served in France as the Officer Commanding No.23 General Hospital, American (Chicago) Medical Unit. For his services he was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 15 June 1916) and awarded the C.M.G. (1916). He was then appointed Officer Commanding the Prince of Wales’ Hospital for Convalescent Officers, in the Great Central Hotel, N.W. London and in 1918 was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Medical Services, Ministry of National Service. He died on 25 January 1944. Sold with a cased (slightly damaged) dagguerotype of the recipient (?) as a boy, three photographs of the recipient in uniform (one a group photograph) and a booklet Pocket Notes on Nerves, by T. Muirhead Martin, bearing the signature ‘C. E. Harrison’; together with copied research. See lot 711 for the recipient’s miniature medals.