Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Lieutenant-Colonel C. G. Nurse, Indian Army, late Royal Irish Fusiliers. A man of many languages and a well respected entomologist, whilst serving in the Army and beyond, he discovered various species, giving much of his collection to the Natural History Museum, where it still resides

Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, undated reverse, 1 clasp, El-Teb-Tamaai (Lieut: C. G. Nurse. 2/R. Ir: Fusrs.); 1914-15 Star, naming erased; British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Col. C. G. Nurse); Khedive’s Star, dated 1884, unnamed as issued, contact marks, nearly very fine and better (5) £500-£700

Dix Noonan Webb, December 2011.

Charles George Nurse was born in Barnham, Suffolk, c.1862. He was commissioned into the Royal Irish Fusiliers as a Second Lieutenant on 22 January 1881 and was advanced to Lieutenant in July the same year. Serving with the Regiment in India, he was variously listed in the Army Lists as an Interpreter or Station Staff Officer, Kolapore. He served with the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers in the Sudan Expedition of 1884, seeing action at the battles of El-Teb and Tamaai. In December 1884 Lieutenant Nurse was seconded to the Indian Staff Corps, and in March 1885 he was appointed to the Bombay Staff Corps, serving with the Zaila Field Force during 1890, combating the activities of the ‘Mad Mullah’ in Somaliland. He was promoted Captain in the Indian Staff Corps in January 1892, and Major in January 1901. Appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in the 113th Infantry in January 1907, he retired from the Indian Army on 23 January 1909.

Nurse returned to action with the onset of the Great War, being reappointed Lieutenant-Colonel from retirement. Attached to the 3rd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, he served on the Western Front from 12 May 1915. Latterly living at ‘Redcote’, Rusthall Park, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, he died on 5 November 1933.

Nurse was a well known and respected entomologist who wrote many articles on the subject, discovering a number of unknown species. His Obituary in The Entomologist’s monthly magazine, Volume 70 1934, states:
‘C. G. Nurse, elected a Special Life Fellow in 1932, became a Fellow in 1895. He was a keen entomologist who began to collect butterflies and moths when a boy at school. Indian Lepidoptera in 1892 and Indian Hymenoptera in 1897 contributing many papers on the latter Order to the Bombay Natural History Society.’

Nurse donated and later left to the Natural History Museum a large collection of insects he had collected, where they still reside today:
‘By the will of the late Lieutenant-Colonel C. G. Nurse, the Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) have received a bequest of 3,000 Indian insects mostly obtained at Quetta, Deesa and Jubbulpore, where Colonel Nurse served with the Indian Army. Colonel Nurse was one of the small band of naturalists among military officers who devoted their leisure to the study of entomology, and was an enthusiastic collector of Hymenoptera, forming a large and valuable collection which he presented to the Museum a few years ago. The present bequest comprises the remainder of his Indian insects and includes about 1,450 Diptera (two winged flies), 1,300 butterflies, 130 dragon-flies and some others; of these the most valuable are the Diptera. The collection is especially rich in species of the family Bombyliidae, most of which are parasitic in the larval state on bees or wasps. Colonel Nurse discovered and described fourteen species of this family which were new to science, and types of these are in the collection, as well as specimens of a number of other flies which were not previously represented in the Museum. Some interesting butterflies and other insects from Aden are included.’

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