Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important and unique West Africa 1899 C.M.G. and Defence of Legations group of four awarded to Doctor Wordsworth Poole, Principal Medical Officer in Central Africa 1895-97 and West Africa, 1897-99, who was Mentioned in Despatches for his services as Physician to the British Legation during the Siege at Peking

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s breast badge, gold and enamels, with integral gold ribbon buckle, some small chips to the enamel of both centres; Central Africa 1891-98, straight bar suspension, 1 clasp, Central Africa 1894-98 (Wordsworth Poole, P. M. O), officially engraved in upright serif capitals; East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, 1897-98 (Dr. Wordsworth Poole, W.A.F.F.), officially impressed naming; China 1900, 1 clasp, Defence of Legations (Wordsworth Poole, M.B., C.M.G., Legation), officially engraved in sloping serif letters, the usual style for officers, the group mounted on a contemporary wearing bar, toned and unless otherwise described, nearly extremely fine (4) £20,000-£26,000

Provenance: A. A. Upfill-Brown Collection, Buckland Dix & Wood, December 1991; Dr. A. L. Lloyd Collection, Bonhams, March 2013.

C.M.G. London Gazette 2 January 1900: ‘For services as Principal Medical Officer of the West African Frontier Force on the Niger.’

Wordsworth Poole, who was born into a medical family at St. Paul's Cray, Kent, on 7 December 1867, was the son of Samuel Wordsworth Poole, an M.D. of Aberdeen and, later, vicar of St. Mark’s, Cambridge, and the grandson of Richard Poole, an eminent physician, psychiatrist and phrenologist, who practised in Edinburgh. He was educated at St. Olave’s School, London, where he won several scholarships and then proceeded to St. Catherine's College, Cambridge where he entered the medical faculty. Completing his training at Guy's Hospital, and qualifying as an M.B. and B.C.H., he was unimpressed with the humdrum prospects of a provincial G.P., and Wordsworth Poole, after a short time as house surgeon, went forth to play his part in Empire, later jotting:
‘There was a young Cambridge M.B.
Said I won't be a Cambridge G.P.
But to Africa's shore I'll stick ever more
And now he's a K.C.M.G.’

Fortunately for posterity’s sake, during his time in Central Africa, Poole kept a journal and wrote many letters to members of his family. Edited and published circa 1960 by Michael Gelfand under the title ‘Doctor on Lake Nyasa - Being the Journal and Letters of Dr. Wordsworth Poole (1895-1897)’ these writings, often quoted below, provide a rare insight into an important period of British rule in Central Africa, dealing as they do with the final overthrow of the armed forces of the African chiefs and Arab leaders who conducted a huge traffic in slaves around and beyond the shores of Lake Nyasa. They also contain much of interest from a medical perspective and many references to the life led by the early Europeans in the protectorate.

British Central Africa
On 5 January 1895, Poole was appointed to the Administration of the British Central Africa Protectorate as second Medical Officer. Bidding farewell to his brother, Francis, at Cairo on 19 February 1895 he embarked for Zomba, via Suez, Zanzibar and Mozambique, arriving on 17 April. Upon arrival, he observed in a letter to his Aunt Mary that there was a great mixture of nationalities in the tiny community of Zomba: ‘There are British, Yaos, Atongas, Arabs, Hindi, Goanese, Zanzibaris, Makua from Mozambique, Persians, a jJew, Zulus, Angoni - all speaking different languages’. As was to be expected, Poole at once commenced to treat the sick, one of his first calls was to make an African a wooden leg, his leg having been bitten off by a crocodile.

Promotion was swift and, following the resignation of the incumbent, Dr. Rendall, by October he held the post of Principal Medical Officer, on the recommendation of the Commissioner, Sir Harry Johnston, who said of him, he had 'shown himself to be a most capable man and he can stand the climate and likes the country.' Wordsworth’s job was not an easy one, however, involving as it did, leaving his post at a moment’s notice to attend to members of the administration. Malaria and its complication, blackwater fever, were the most serious disadvantages of the country. The mortality rate amongst the officials and settlers must have been one of the highest in the world with an overall annual death rate of around 10 percent. The death rate among officials was particularly high. In 1897-98 there were 81 officials, of whom one-fifth were always on leave. Out of the total of 65 in the country there were 12 deaths (18 per cent), practically all in the prime of their life.

Although conditions for the handful of Europeans in the capital were harsh, Poole discovered he could get by set apart from fair-skinned females; his military neighbours, on the other hand, he found rather trying. 'Take them all round,' he wrote, 'soldiers are about the most uninteresting men out - Their calling seems to wash anything original out of them and they become exasperating bores.' However, he enthusiastically entered the social life of the place, becoming secretary of the sports club and building a tennis court. Being of literary interests, he was also the prime mover in establishing a library.

In September 1895, Wordsworth Poole took part in the first of several expeditions to suppress slavery on the southern shores of Lake Nyasa. As the expedition approached Chief Matipwiri's village, he was conscious of the ever present dangers ‘It was difficult to get rid of an uncomfortable feeling that some of the enemy lurking in the grass might loose off a gun at you, trusting for his chance of getting away in the long grass, in which they dodge about like hares. This did actually happen, for just as we were setting about to bivouac, three of the enemy fired from the bush, hitting no one but one of them got dropped by two bullets’. Contemplating the forthcoming battle 'I had been thinking all day what I should do when the action commenced,' he imagined himself treating the casualties, with his, 'boy carrying my Winchester to be handy’ in case he should be attacked when attending to the wounded. The reality, however, was somewhat different. The enemy evaporated and, ‘various parties went out burning villages and killing a few folk.’

The following month, enabled by an absence of sickness in Zomba, Poole was thrilled to join Major C. E. Edwards on his campaign against Zirafi, a powerful chief living on a steep and impregnable hill covered with boulders of rock, ‘with people potting at you from good cover.’ The skirmishing en-route was described by Poole in a letter to his mother ‘I and my hospital carriers were passing a clearing when about 70 yards away from us two guns blazed off from behind rocks. The porters threw down their loads and hooked. My boy ran up to me with my rifle, and I was trying to catch sight of someone to fire at (I’m fairly steady with the rifle now) when I saw a flash and some smoke, followed by another, and a bullet fell near my feet, knocking up dust into my face’. They pushed on, intent on punishing the naughty Zirafi, but, on finding the enemy's town abandoned, embarked upon the next stage of the campaign against the wicked Mponda, who in turn gave himself up in fear of the oncoming white men. Poole, meanwhile, was busy in his hospital and had been performing several operations, ‘Last Saturday I took off a man’s hand. He had been shot through the wrist by one of Zirafi’s men about six week’s ago. Since then he has had Tetanus, but recovered at Fort Johnston. He is doing well now and it has all healed up by primary union.’

On 13 November, Poole set out with a force of 180 rifles to deal with the notorious Makanjira, responsible for the brutal murder of Captain Maguire. At this time Poole found himself with a number of wounded on his hands and observed, with regards to physical pain, 'the blunted feelings of these black men.' Once order had been restored on the Lake's southern shores, Sir H. Johnston turned his attention to the north, and on 24 November, Poole accompanied Major Edwards, Smith and Bradshaw of 35th Sikhs on the German Steamer S.S. Hermann von Wissman on their way up to the Arab strongholds of Mloze, Kopa Kopa and Kapandanserer; their force of 400 soldiers arriving in detachments. Stopping on the way for two days at Likoma, a missionary station, Poole reflected on the nature of the Europeans who come to Africa ‘There is a peculiarity about the men who have been in Africa some time. You get into a groove of your own and can’t bear anyone else to be running the show with you. Look at Livingstone and his fearful temper and quarrels with other white men. Kirk, Stanley and all of them the same. One’s temper must become ruined. It is so noticeable with every head of out-stations; they are all bears in one way and brook no interference. I see that one must make enormous allowances for people out here. The circumstances are so adverse. There is no public opinion and such a fierce light of criticism beats upon the actions of a handful of white men out here.’

At Likoma, Doctor Poole was kept busy attending to Major Edwards, who had caught blackwater fever and Major Bradshaw, suffering from two deep abscesses in his thigh. After nursing both back to some degree of health they proceeded north to confront the Arab slave traders. The Arab strongholds, however, were anything but and after some accurate shelling these fell in quick succession. Nevertheless, Poole had a busy time of it among the wounded and treated Mloze himself; resuscitating him to the point where he was sensible enough to be told he was going to be hanged anyway.

Following the campaigns, Wordsworth encouraged Francis, his brother, to join the force in British Central Africa, which he duly did, arriving in Zomba at the start of December 1896. Francis then proceeded to Fort Lister where he raised a Company that ultimately formed part of the 1st Battalion, Central African Rifles, the fore-runner to the famous King’s African Rifles. Early in 1897, however, like most Europeans in Central Africa, Francis was struck down with fever, Wordsworth Poole recording in his diary: ‘Last night news came that Francis at Fort Lister had a bad go of fever. Temperature 105 and delirious, so early this morning I left, not in the most cheerful of spirits. In fact there was a heavy feeling that I should not find him alive when I got there. Arrived and found Francis very weak and slightly delirious. Had a temperature of 106.' And the following day: 'A terrible day- his throat filled with mucus, there were muscular tremors, his jaw dropped, and a hoarse cry came out from his throat. Temperature 107.2. I thought it was the end. What would mother and father say if he died, and I felt responsible for him having got him out here.' (Wordsworth Poole’s Diary refers). Fortunately though, Francis slowly recovered, and by the 15th January was well enough for Wordsworth to return to Zomba where he became, once again, busily engaged in his medical practice, describing in his letters the appalling outbreaks of severe dysentery and the difficulties he had in dealing with them single-handed ‘just now there is a great deal of sickness about. In the last fortnight I have had about 40 cases of very acute dysentery, some cases of pneumonia and other minor ones.’

By the time Wordsworth Poole left Nyasaland on leave, in June 1897, almost the whole country had submitted to British rule, and he could claim that he saw the overthrow of all the important chiefs who indulged in the practise of slavery there. During his leave, he was nominated as Principal Medical Officer to the West Africa Field Force under Colonel (later Lord) Lugard, and, having served for 18 months with the West Africa Field Force, was made a C.M.G. and mentioned in despatches by Lugard:
‘I noticed that the published list of awards contained no recognition of the excellent services of the Medical Department, of whose work I spoke in my despatch in the strongest terms at my command. I venture to bring to special notice the name of Doctor W. Poole, Principal Medical officer of the Force, whose previous record of service in Nyasaland under the Foreign Office constitutes an additional claim upon government.’ (London Gazette 2 January 1900 refers)

Peking - Defence of Legations
Although eager to continue his work in Africa, his career on that continent was finished by an attack of blackwater fever, causing him to seek employment elsewhere. He recorded his options in his diary on 6 June 1899, while on leave in England:
‘1. Another billet from Colonial Office in a healthy climate. Such a billet as would be worth my while accepting would probably be a long time turning up.
2. Stay at home and try and get on Tropical School of Medicine- but pay poor.
3. Foreign Office said there was a possibility of post of physician to Legation at Peking falling vacant. Worth about £700 a year. Climate good. Drawbacks to this appointment not allowed private practice; so few members in Legation that one's medical knowledge would completely rust; and no further advancement. But an easy well paid billet. My prospects in Nigeria were good- whether it will be possible or politic to go back to Nigeria after say 2 years in Peking is a question that will probably present itself later.’

The post in Peking did fall vacant and having been offered it by the Foreign Office, Poole accepted on 22 August 1899 and, three months later, departed Charing Cross, arriving in Peking on 30 December.

The following day, as he settled in, a telegram arrived for him: ‘Poole, British Legation, Peking. Following from Lord Chamberlain: Queen Pleased appoint you Companion Michael George Services West Africa.’ prompting him to write that night in his diary: ‘Ain’t it good biz at 32!’. After two months settling in, making calls, and even having an Audience with the Emperor, March began with two more bits of good news: ‘Francis is coming out to China as they won't give him a chance in the Transvaal. He has already started learning the lingo and thinks he will be out here about the middle of May. The latest news also received is that Buller has relieved Ladysmith.’ (Wordsworth Poole’s Diary, 1 March 1900 refers).

Wordsworth’s brother Francis, now a Captain, had been sent to Peking to learn Chinese at the behest the War Office and Wordsworth eagerly anticipated his arrival, since, by May, life in the Legation in Peking was proving to be somewhat underwhelming: ‘The desire for Africa comes over me fairly strongly at times. To be pent up within these 4 Legation walls looking after babies who get indigestion, and to be herded together in the city whilst there is the wind in the open and game in the thickets, fame and fever in fascinating Africa, is no life for a man.’ (Wordworth Poole’s Diary, 14 May 1900 refers).

This sense of boredom and irrelevance was short-lived, however, since, in actuality, he could scarcely have chosen a more perilous moment to arrive, and he and his brother were about to play significant roles in what was to come. With the anti-foreign, anti-Christian, Boxer movement gradually gaining strength, by mid/late May a sudden sense of unease had gripped the International Legations in Peking. News of massacres of missionaries and their converts in the nearby province of Shandong combined with equivocation by the Chinese government soon led to a request, on 28 May, for additional guards to be sent from the various foreign fleets stationed at the coast. The first contingents, arrived from Tientsin on 31 May. Francis Poole noted in his diary ‘Everybody went down to meet the guards late in the afternoon. French, American, Russian, Japanese, Italian, and British. Ours and the Americans were marines, the remainder bluejackets, in all about 300, ours naturally the smartest.’

By 13 June the situation had deteriorated, Francis Poole recording in his diary ‘Fires in all quarters of the city, mission compounds being burnt, shots fired down Legation Street ... I think the row has begun ... Everywhere Christians are being murdered by the Boxers.’ And then four days later events took another turn for the worse when Chinese Imperial Troops also began to open fire on the Legations’ defensive pickets. Naturally, when an ultimatum was issued by the Chinese Government, ordering that all diplomatic bodies in Peking would have to leave for Tientsin within 24 hours, under escort, it was treated with scepticism and Francis Poole mused on an earlier instance of treachery perpetrated against British subjects at Cawnpore ‘I also suspect that were we to leave here, we would fall into a Chinese trap, and history would repeat itself with a repetition of Nana Sahib’s massacre. So its war with China.’

On 20 June, the murder by the Chinese of the German Minister, Baron von Ketteler, prompted a decision for all foreign women and children to be given shelter in the British Legation and with Claude MacDonald, the British Minister, in command of the defence, the historic 55 day siege officially began. Dr. Poole, meanwhile, readied his hospital for the casualties to come and he would once again be tested to the limit.

‘The international hospital was housed in the chancery of the British Legation. Through it in the course of the Siege passed 125 severely wounded men (of whom seventeen died), one severely wounded woman and forty cases of sickness - mostly enteric and dysentery - of whom two died. It was a grim place. Fortunately Dr Velde, a German surgeon and Dr Poole, the British Legation’s resident physician, were skilful as well as devoted. They were ably seconded by a sick-bay attendant from H.M.S. Orlando and an amateur nursing staff, to which the handsome Madame de Giers was an unexpectedly valuable recruit; Madame Pichon, on the other hand, Dr Poole found ‘a great nuisance.’

Their resources were pitifully inadequate. The hospital had only four small iron bedsteads and seven camp-beds; most of the patients, whose numbers after the first two or three weeks never fell below sixty, lay on the floor, on mattresses stuffed with the straw in which wine-bottles had been packed. Antiseptics were scarce, there were hardly any anaesthetics and no X-ray apparatus. In the end, only one thermometer (it belonged to the widowed Baroness von Ketteler) was left unbroken. Bags of sawdust and powdered peat were used as dressings. The windows were sandbagged, and as the sun beat down on the low, overcrowded building the wounded suffered severely from the heat. There were no proper mosquito nets and the flies were a torment. They were bolder and more ubiquitous (it struck one patient) than the flies round a sweetmeat stall in an Indian bazaar, and every time a heavy gun was fired at night they rose from their roosting-places with so deafening a buzz that it woke the patients. The diet of pony-meat, varied with scraggy mutton until the sheep ran out, was monotonous and unsuitable for sick men; but the Chinese cooks showed as much versatility as their materials allowed, and ‘game’, which consisted of magpies and sparrows, was esteemed a special delicacy.’ (The Siege at Peking by Peter Fleming refers)

Another account by an American missionary-nurse who was eyewitness to events recalled her endless days and nights in the hospital, which another besieged individual, Bertram Lenox Simpson, termed the ‘chamber of horrors’:
‘The supply of everything was short ... The patients were all wounded men, the supply of absorbent dressings was very small, of rubber protectives there were almost none. When the mattresses and pillows were blood-soaked, there was nothing to do but wash them off as well as possible and use them again. The supply of proper sheets and pillowcases being inadequate, they were made up hastily out of any material that could be spared from the sandbags. Coarse, thin Chinese cotton covered one patient while his neighbour looked down on an expanse of slippery shining damask. As one patient remarked, “in this hospital it is every man for his own tablecloth.” Two napkins made a cover for a feather pillow. A beautiful embroidered linen pillowcase did duty on a pillow made of the straw bottle covers (the straw came from champagne bottles which, ironically, were in better supply than medicines.)... At first the most approved surgical dressings were to be had, then bags of peat and finally, bags of sawdust served as dressings. At first bandages were used with a lavish hand, but before the close of the siege they had to be washed and do duty more than once. The small supply of the drugs most useful became pitifully small. The last bottle of chloroform was opened. No one can be impressed with the perishable nature of the hypodermic needle until he is obliged to use it many times every day with the knowledge that the last needle that can be procured from anywhere is in his hand.’

Between his many and varied duties, it appears that Wordsworth Poole also found himself involved in a V.C. action. Captain Halliday, R.M.L.I., had been ordered through a hole in the Legation wall to clear away a group of Boxers, which he duly did. On being critically wounded, he returned to the hole unaided so as not to diminish the numbers of men engaged in the sortie. At this point, Poole assisted the wounded hero and conducted him to the hospital. Wordsworth’s brother Francis, was also recognised for gallantry, being awarded the only D.S.O. given for the Defence.

Finally the Siege came to its happy conclusion, but Wordsworth Poole had suffered badly and soon after the arrival of the relief force he succumbed to a severe attack of jaundice and fever. He was mentioned in Claude MacDonald’s despatch from Peking dated 20 September 1900. His brother also being brought to notice in the same despatch which the Marquess of Salisbury received on 22 November 1900.

‘My Lord, I have the honour to recommend the following officers and civilians who did exceptionally good service during the siege and attack on the Legation quarter from 20th June to the 14th August...
One of the most important departments in the system of defence was the international hospital. The two doctors doing duty were Dr. Poole, Legation surgeon and Dr. Velde, of the German Legation. During the siege 166 cases passed through the hospital, 20 suffering from illness; the rest were all severely wounded. Owing to the devotion and skill of these two medical officers, 110 of the wounded were eventually discharged cured, and this, notwithstanding that towards the end of the siege, the resources of all the dispensaries having proved unequal to the strain, medical appliances, such as bandages and medicated wool, had to be replaced by makeshifts from cast-off linen, the wool being replaced by sterilised sawdust. Dr. Poole was indefatigable at his work, always sympathetic and cheerful. The wounded of all nationalities spoke most warmly of his devotion and skill. At the conclusion of the siege he was struck down with fever of a very dangerous description, and had to be invalided ... signed Claude M. MacDonald’ (Official Account of the Military Operations in China 1900-1901 by Major E. W. M. Norrie refers).

Despite the wide recognition of his services - the French had offered him the Legion of Honour which he was unable to accept owing to existing Foreign Office regulations, and the Graphic paid tribute to his 'wonderful power of 'making the best' of conditions - he became mentally depressed, exacerbated no doubt by the acute rheumatism from which he was now also suffering. The coup de grace came in December 1901, when he contracted typhoid, causing his much lamented demise in January 1902.

Sold with a copy of 'Doctor on Lake Nyasa. Being the Journal and Letters of Dr. Wordsworth Poole (1895-1897)' published circa 1960; a photographic image of the recipient; and copied research.