Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Nursing Sister Mabel Effie Jeffery, Scottish Women’s Hospitals and French Flag Nursing Corps

British War and Victory Medals (M. E. Jeffery.); Serbian Red Cross Medal 1914-18, silver and enamel; American Committee Medal for Regions Devastated in France 1916-23, silver, mounted as worn, good very fine (4) £600-£800

Mabel Effie Jeffery was born at Deepcar, Sheffield, in 1883. She trained as a nurse at Sheffield Union Hospital, July 1909 to July 1912, and was registered with the British Nurse’s Association, No. 4843, on 8 May 1913. After the outbreak of war she volunteered her services and went with the Scottish Women’s Hospital to Abbaye de Royaumont, where she served from 27 March 1915 to 1 March 1916. After a month at home she returned to France for service with the French Flag Nursing Corps at Hospital No. 25, Talence, Bordeaux. In September 1916 she transferred to Hospital 32 at Chateau Thierry, Aisne; in October 1917 to Ambulance 12/14 at Vauxbuin, near Soissons, and in July 1918 to Pontoise. With the war practically over she went to Serbia with the Scottish Women’s Hospital, serving at Belgrade and Vranje until April 1920.

Sold with a copy of Auntie Mabel’s War - An account of her part in the hostilities of 1914-18, complied by Marian Wenzel [niece] and John Cornish, profusely illustrated with postcards and their messages sent home by Mabel Jeffery to her parents during the war, and other passages extracted from her notebooks. A final entry noted, ‘And when we come to the end of life the only things that seem worth while our having done, are the sacrifices we have made for others.’