An extremely rare Punjab Frontier R.R.C. pair awarded to Senior Nursing Sister Mary E. Barker, Indian Army Nursing Service, who nursed British and Indian soldiers in a Himalayan fort under constant enemy fire

Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, V.R., silver-gilt, gold and enamel, on lady’s bow riband; India General Service 1895-1902, 1 clasp, Punjab Frontier 1897-98 (Nursing Sister M. E. Barker. I.A.N.S.) good very fine (2) £3,000-£4,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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Dix Noonan Webb, June 2005.

R.R.C. London Gazette 21 April 1899:
‘Miss Mary Ellen Barker, Indian Nursing Service. In recognition of the services rendered by her in connection with the nursing of the sick and wounded during the late operations on the Punjab Frontier.’

One of only 3 R.R.C. awards for this campaign, the other two being announced in the same gazette.

Mary Ellen Barker was born in Mansfield, Nottingham, on 25 March 1863, the daughter of a stone merchant. Educated at a Ladies’ Private School in Barlborough, Derbyshire, she entered the Nightingale Fund Training School at St. Thomas’s Hospital in Lambeth in July 1889. Completing her training ‘very satisfactorily’, she was taken onto the permanent staff of the Diptheria Ward and was later appointed Head Nurse on the Surgical Ward.

Employed in 1894 as a private nurse, Barker proved instrumental in saving the life of the Dowager Countess of Morley when her bedding caught fire at Whiteway Mansion, Chudleigh, Devon. For this act she was awarded a silver medal and three guineas by the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire at a meeting held on 26 September 1895. Supported by a strong reference from the Earl of Morley, her second application to the Indian Army Nursing Service proved fruitful and she was appointed Nursing Sister on 27 November 1895. Posted to the Station Hospital at Rawalpindi for her first term of five years, Barker soon caught the attention of Lady Superintendent Loch when she noted in her diary: ‘August 1897. Sister B is under orders to go to the Malakand and naturally is in a tremendous state of excitement.’

Detached to the Malakand Frontier Force, Barker served on the North-West Frontier of India from 15 August to 7 October 1897. For her efforts to nurse the sick and wounded she was awarded the R.R.C. and India General Service Medal, the former being presented to her on parade at Murree on 25 July 1899 by General Sir Arthur Power Palmer. A contemporary article published in The Nursing Record & Hospital World on 9 September 1899, adds a little more detail regarding both awards:

‘Miss Barker, during the frontier campaign, was shut up in one of the Malabund forts, being the only woman in it, and worked night and day nursing the wounded, besides being constantly under fire. She also rendered great service at the base hospital during the same campaign. This is not the first occasion on which Miss Barker has distinguished herself. She has already received a medal for saving life from fire, having carried a burning patient out of a hospital (sic) at great risk to her own life.’

Returning to Rawalpindi, Barker completed her first term on 26 November 1900. Signing up for further duties, she transferred to Peshawar in June 1902, and in April 1903 became officiating Senior Sister at Mian Mir. With her health declining, she finally resigned from the service on 15 August 1905.

Sold with copied Indian Army Nursing Service Record and private research.