Auction Catalogue

24 & 25 February 2016

Starting at 11:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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Lot

№ 177

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24 February 2016

Hammer Price:
£2,400

Five: Matron A. Knaggs, Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, late Army Nursing Service, who was awarded the R.R.C. for her services in the Boer War and a Bar for her services in the Great War, the latter period including her appointment as Matron of the Hospital Ship Nevasa off Gallipoli 1915-16

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Nursing Sister A. Knaggs); King’s South Africa 1901-02, no clasp (Nursing Sister A. Knaggs); 1914-15 Star (Matron A. Knaggs, Q.A.I.M.N.S.); British War and Victory Medals (Matron A. Knaggs), very fine or better (5) £850-950

Amy Knaggs was born in Winchester, Hampshire in 1866, the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Knaggs, Army Medical Service, and his wife Emma. Amy completed her Registered Nurse training at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, 1888 to 1891 and, following a three month break, she was employed at the Leicester Infirmary.

Appointed a Nursing Sister in the Army Nursing Service in January 1894, her first appointment was at the Herbert Hospital, Woolwich. She subsequently served in Devonport between June 1895 and April 1896, when she was placed on the Army Nursing Service Reserve after resigning to take up civil employment.

Mobilised on the outbreak of hostilities in South Africa, she was embarked with No. 8 Hospital at Southampton aboard the S.S.
Dunraven Castle in January 1900. At Bloemfontein, No. 8 Hospital was dispersed and Miss Knaggs was appointed Nursing Superintendent at No. 5 Stationary Hospital, the former Free State Parliament Building, remaining there for 20 months. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross (R.R.C.) (London Gazette 27 September 1901, refers), which distinction she received from H.M. King Edward VII at St. James’s Palace in December 1901, whilst on leave. Returning to South Africa she finally came home on 23 October 1902, when she left the Army Nursing Service Reserve.

Quickly re-employed on re-joining the Reserve in March 1905, she served at Canterbury from 22
March 1905 to 10 July 1905 and at Warley from 11 July 1905 to 7 October 1905, and as Nurse in Charge of the Guards Hospital at Caterham from 8 October 1905 to 17 June 1907. Once again, however, she returned to civil employment, this time to open her own Training Institute for Nurses in Southport, Lancashire.

In February 1915, she joined Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, in which capacity she was appointed Matron of the Hospital Ship
Nevasa (660 beds), operating between Egypt and the U.K., including 12 trips to the beaches of Gallipoli. Returning home to take up an appointment at Devonport on 28 October 1916, she subsequently served as Matron at Sheerness from 17 January 1917, Hurley Camp from 5 November 1917, and at Lord Derby’s War Hospital, Warrington from 29 April 1918 to 30 November 1919. Awarded a Bar to her R.R.C. (London Gazette 9 April 1919, refers), she was found unfit for further service by a Medical Board on 17 November 1919 and was invalided from the service; sold with copied research.