Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The K.C.V.O. awarded to Sir George F. Still, Physician Extraordinary to King George VI

The Royal Victorian Order, K.C.V.O., Knight Commander’s set of insignia, neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; breast star, silver, silver-gilt and enamel, both officially numbered, ‘593’, in Collingwood, London case of issue, extremely fine (2) £500-600

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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George Frederic Still was born in 1868 and educated at Merchant Taylor’s School and then Caius College, Cambridge, in the latter being the Winchester Prizeman. He studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital, winning the Murchison Scholarship in 1894. He was then house physician at Guy’s but it was his appointment to the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street that resulted in a life-long devotion to the treatment of sick children. Quite early in his career he did two pieces of work which made his name well known in medical circles, in the first he established the entity of chronic rheumatoid arthritis perculiar to children - this became known as ‘Still’s Disease’, and in the second, he identified the organism responsible for the affliction of posterior basic meningitis.

His discoveries brought him recognition and he quickly rose to the highest medical offices. In 1936 he was appointed Physician-in-Ordinary to the then Duke and Duchess of York, becoming Physician Extraordinary to King George VI in 1937. In these two appointments he acted as doctor to the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. He was Fellow and Member of Council of King’s College, London; Consulting Physician for Diseases of Children, King’s College Hospital and to the Hospital for Sick Children and Emeritus Professor of Diseases of Children, King’s College. He was the first President of the British Pædiatric Association; President of the International Pædiatric Congress 1933 and Chairman of the National Association for Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1917-37.

When he retired from this latter position in 1937 he was honoured with the K.C.V.O. Sir George Still died on 28 June 1941.

Sold with a folder of copied research.