Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Natal (Sir W. Stokes, Kt: Surgeon.) extremely fine £240-280

Sir William Stokes was born in Dublin on 10 March 1839, the second son of Professor William Stokes, Regius Professor of Medicine and Physician in Ordinary to Her Majesty in Ireland, and was educated at the Royal School, Armagh, and Trinity College, Dublin. He became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland in 1862, and took his degree in medicine and surgery the following year. After two years of further study in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and London, he commenced practice in Dublin. Knighted in 1886, he was appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to H.M. Queen Victoria in Ireland in 1892, and was also appointed professor of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, becoming President of the Royal College in 1887. He married Miss Elizabeth Moore, the eldest daughter of the Revd. J. L. Moore, D.D., Vice-Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1869; they had no children.

Sir William Stokes ‘was one of those distinguished surgeons who, at the end of 1899, responded to the call of his Sovereign and country and came forward to assist the Empire. He was appointed a consulting surgeon to the army in South Africa. Many of those who were wounded in the Natal campaign, and had the happiness and good fortune to come under his care, look back with gratitude to his skill and gentleness in dealing with their cases. In Natal he was chiefly in the hospitals of Mooi River, Pietermaritzburg, and in Ladysmith after the siege was raised. Believing the war would be over in July 1900, he had arranged if his service were not further required to return home. Some time previously he had been ill from the effects of overwork, and went to Durban for a change. Writing on 28 June 1900, he said, “I am getting quite well again, and hope to soon get back to Maritzburg and Newcastle as there are cases waiting for me.” He returned to work in early July, and having visited the hospitals at Volksrust and Charlestown, he was again taken ill at Maritzburg on 15 August, and died three days later on 18 August 1900. He is buried in the cemetery at Fort Napier, South Africa, and was interred with full military honours, his appointment carrying the rank of a general officer. He was posthumously Mentioned in Lord Robert’s Despatch of 2 April 1901, who wrote that “the services rendered by Sir W. Stokes were of incalculable value”.’