Orders, Decorations and Medals

A mounted group of nine miniature dress medals attributed to Major-General S. MacDonald, Royal Army Medical Corps
Order of the Bath, Military Division, silver-gilt and enamel, ring suspension; Order of St. Michael and St. George, silver-gilt and enamel, ring suspension, India General Service 1895-1902, 1 clasp, Tirah 1897-8; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Orange Free State, South Africa 1902; 1914 Star; British War and Victory Medals; Coronation 1911, silver; France, Croix de Guerre 1914-1916, with bronze palm on ribbon, some contact marks, very fine and better (9) £100-140

Full-size and miniature medals ex Spink, 11 May 2001.

Stuart MacDonald was born in Elgin, Scotland, on 14 April 1861 and qualified in medicine at Aberdeen University in 1884. He entered the R.A.M.C. as a Surgeon Captain in February 1887 and was promoted to Major in February 1899, Lieutenant-Colonel in July 1911 and Colonel in March 1915. On active service on the N.W. Frontier, 1897-98, serving with the Turak and Tirah Expeditionary Forces; he later served in the Boer War.

In the Great War, he was on active service in France/Flanders for the duration of the conflict. He was C.O. of No. 1 General Hospital, October 1914-April 1915, Assistant Medical Director of the 1st Division, April 1915-November 1916, and Deputy Director of Medical Services, November 1916-April 1918. For his great wartime services, he was five times mentioned in despatches and awarded the C.M.G. in 1916, the C.B. in 1918 and French Croix de Guerre in 1917. Latterly appointed an Hon. Physician to the King, he retired at the end of the war with the rank of Major-General. MacDonald died in May 1939.