The historically interesting Crimea War pair awarded to Honorary Major F. Fernandez, Army Hospital Corps, who served as an Apothecary to the Forces with charge of the Army’s Medical Stores at Balaklava - and found Florence Nightingale ‘very, very difficult to work with’

Crimea 1854-56, 2 clasps, Inkermann, Sebastopol (Mr. F. Fernandez, Apothecary to the Forces), contemporary engraved naming; Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, Hunt and Roskill issue (Mr. F. Fernandez, Apothecary to the Forces), contemporary engraved naming edge nicks, otherwise generally good very fine (2) £1800-2200

Provenance: Wallis and Wallis, July 1970; Ron Penhall Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, September 2006.

Francisco Fernandez was born in Zeres, Spain, in September 1828, the son of a prominent sherry exporter, and was educated in Bishops Waltham, Hampshire. He was employed initially at Squires of Bond Street, Queen Victoria’s Apothecary, before being appointed a Dispenser of Medicine to the British Army on 4 September 1854. He served in this capacity in the Crimea before being appointed Apothecary to the Forces on 20 February 1855, and was placed in charge of the medical stores at Balaklava.

Fernandez became a naturalised Briton on 14 February 1857, and was subsequently employed as an Apothecary during the Second China War, where he was present at the taking of Canton and the Taku Forts (Medal with clasp for Canton). He was later appointed Captain of Orderlies in the Army Hospital Corps in June 1873, and served in that capacity for several years at Portsmouth, prior to his retirement on 14 September 1886 with the rank of Honorary Major. He died at Folkestone, Kent, on 11 November 1907.

A letter from the recipient’s grand-daughter, included with the lot, states: ‘...he found Florence Nightingale very very difficult to work with. He was in charge of all drugs and medical goods which was hard to get over from England, and Miss Nightingale took it out of him for this. If they had to operate on a man they made him very drunk on whisky to stop him feeling the pain.’

Sold together with a fine pair of miniature portraits, one depicting the recipient in scarlet tunic and wearing his British Crimea Medal, the other of his wife, both approximately 120mm x 90mm, and mounted together in a somewhat damaged folding embroidered travel case of mid-19th Century Chinese manufacture; a large Brass Dressing Bowl, 105mm high x 420mm in diameter, reputedly used on occasion by Florence Nightingale in the Crimea; an informative letter written by the recipient’s grand-daughter to Mr. Ronald Pennell, dated 14 December 1970; and various copied research.