Orders, Decorations and Medals

Family group:

A rare Balkans and Black Sea 1919 operations M.C. awarded to Captain F. D. Abbott, Royal Field Artillery

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; 1914-15 Star (2 Lieut., R.F.A.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.), traces of over-striking in naming on the first but entirely as issued, good very fine and better

The Great War pair awarded to Sister H. Stothard, Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, later Captain Abbott’s wife

British War and Victory Medals (Sister), good very fine or better (6) £1200-1500

M.C. London Gazette 12 December 1919:

‘For distinguished service in connection with military operations in the Balkans and with the British Army of the Black Sea, dated 3 June 1919.’

Mention in despatches London Gazette 27 November 1917, 11 June 1918 and 5 June 1919 (all for Salonika).

Francis Dixon Abbott was born in August 1886 and was educated at St. Bede’s Prep School and Eastbourne College, prior to taking a post in a British engineering company in Chile. Returning home at the end of 1914, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery and first witnessed active service out in France between May 1915 and January 1916. Next embarked for Salonika, where he served until November 1918, he was wounded by shrapnel in both thighs in the Struma Valley in October 1916, wounds that necessitated his temporary evacuation to Malta. As per the above listed London Gazette dates, Abbott was thrice mentioned in despatches for ‘gallant conduct and distinguished services’ in this theatre of war, prior to being embarked for South Russia as an Acting Major and Battery C.O. in D. 98th Brigade, R.F.A. in November 1918. Evacuated from the Caucasus in May 1919, suffering from malaria, he was finally demobilised in London that December, the same month in which he was gazetted for his M.C.

Harriet Abbott (nee Stothard) was born in May 1885, near Barnsley, and trained as a nurse at Middlesborough Union Hospital 1910-14. Joining Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve in April 1915, she served in the U.K. until embarked for Salonika in April 1918, in which theatre of war she served until being invalided home with malaria in May 1919, her postings including 28, 43 and 67 General Hospitals. The date of her evacuation coincides with that of her future husband’s from the Caucasus, so it seems likely that both malaria patients met at this time - more certain is the fact that she wrote to the Matron-in-Chief in October 1919, seeking her immediate demobilisation, because she was due to wed in a few days.