Five: Lieutenant-Colonel M. J. Quirke, Indian Medical Service

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1908-10 (Captain. M. J. Quirke, M.B., I.M.S.); 1914 Star (Capt. M. J. Quirke, I.M.S.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Major M. J. Quirke); Defence Medal, good very fine (5) £400-£500

Dix Noonan Webb, September 2003.

Michael Joseph Quirke was born at Handsworth in 1879 and qualified as a M.B. and Ch.B. at Birmingham in 1901. Prior to his military service he was House Surgeon at Queen’s Hospital and a ship’s Surgeon on the Blue Funnel Line. A Lieutenant with the I.M.S. in 1904 and Captain in 1907, he took part in the Somaliland Expedition as Chief Medical Officer, and was Mentioned in Despatches ‘for general good work’ (London Gazette 17 June 1910). He gained the Diploma of Tropical Medicine at London in 1907 and a Diploma of Public Health at Cambridge in 1913. Promoted Major in July 1913, he served in H.M. Hospital Ship Sicilia, in France and Gallipoli, 1914-15, and the North West Frontier, 1916-17, and then took part in the Mesopotamia Campaign 1917-19, serving for a time as Acting Lieutenant-Colonel. For his services during the Great War he was again Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette: 7 February 1919).

On the Retired List in 1921, Quirke transferred to the Indian Medical Service as Divisional Sanitary Commissioner and Inspector of Vaccination, Central Range. He was in practice at Felsted, Essex during 1926-30 and was Medical Officer of Health for Upton-upon-Severn Rural District, part-time, from 1932 to 1945. During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard. He died at Hanley, Worcestershire in 1968.

Sold with the recipient’s original Great War M.I.D. certificate, some copied research and a copy portrait photographic image of the recipient in uniform.