Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War Royal Red Cross group of three awarded to Nursing Sister M. MacInnnes, Canadian Army Medical Corps

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class (A.R.R.C.), G.V.R., silver and enamel, with bow ribbon; British War and Victory Medals (S. Nurse M. MacInnes) very fine and better (3) £260-300

A.R.R.C. London Gazette 3 June 1919. ‘Miss M. MacInnes, Nursing Sister, Can. A.M.C.’

Mary Geraldine McGinnis was born in London, Ontario, Canada, on 13 November 1893. In civilian life a Graduate Nurse, having served one year with Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service, she was appointed a Nursing Sister in the Canadian Army Medical Corps, on 2 March 1918. Posted overseas, she arrived in England in September 1918 and from October 1918 served at No. 16 Canadian Hospital (Ontario Hospital) in Orpington, Kent. She was demobilised on 17 September 1919, with the intention of living at her parent’s house at 462 Piccadilly Street, London, Ontario. For her services in the war she was awarded the Royal Red Cross 2nd Class. With a number of copied service papers, these all giving her name as ‘Mary Geraldine McGinnis’ - note different to that on medals.