Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A most interesting Indian Mutiny medal awarded to William Green, Medical Staff Corps, who nursed Florence Nightingale at Scutari when taken with fever, and latterly was with the Shannon's Naval Brigade at Lucknow where he states he was wounded by a ‘slug’ in the arm

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Lucknow (1st Class Ordy. Wm. Green, Med. Staff Corps) fitted with contemporary T. B. Bailey Coventry silver ribbon brooch, suspension claw re-affixed, polished overall, otherwise nearly very fine £1,200-£1,600

William Green was born at St. Luke, Islington, London, circa 1838, the son of James Green. He attested into the Medical Staff Corps in September 1855 with the service number 316.
The Medical Staff Corps was improvised in haste to alleviate the dire medical facilities that existed during the Crimea campaign. In August 1856, Judge Advocate General Charles Pelham Villiers declared the Corps illegal and inadmissible, as the word ‘Corps’ was not in the statutes raised by Parliament, and that all M.S.C. ranks were not recognised. The medical services were revised under a new Royal Warrant and named the Army Hospital Corps, although the M.S.C. continued in various guises until 1860.
The Muster Rolls for the Medical Staff Corps [WO 12/19010-19015] confirm that Green sailed on the steam vessel Thames with the second draft of the M.S.C. which left Chatham on 24 October and arrived at Scutari on 12 November 1855. It consisted of 1 steward, 4 assistant stewards, 8 assistant ward-masters and 147 orderlies.
On arrival at Scutari, Green served under Florence Nightingale before going to the Balaklava hospital on 27 November where he transported the sick and wounded. He was placed in charge of the Recruit hospital on the front line as a First Class Assistant, before returning to Scutari where he nursed Florence Nightingale when she taken ill with fever, then remaining there for the duration of the war. Green was not entitled to the Crimean medals, arriving too late for qualification. Intriguingly, the Florence Nightingale Museum holds a letter from Florence Nightingale to William Green dated 4 December 1899, although it is neither written nor signed in Florence Nightingale's hand. The Collection's Manager states that in later life Florence Nightingale was bedridden, being afflicted by blindness and depression and relied on several assistants to whom she dictated a response to the many letters she received. The museum confirms the letter to be genuine and is one of those hastily dictated replies, later rewritten by her assistants in a more legible hand, with the original dictated letter filed in their collection. It reads:
‘My poor brave friend, We feel so sorry for you and we grieve with you. But it is giving glory to God, as I know you feel, to suffer as you do for him. He is bearing your burden for you... and blessing you,’ and continues that she plans to send him a book or two which she thinks he will like, ending with ‘Your sincere friend, Full of respect – F. Nightingale’.
Green returned to England and served short periods in Ireland and Aldershot before being sent out to India during the first quarter of 1858. He was firstly sent up country with that ‘memorable party of sailors who volunteered for land service under Captain Peel of the Shannon who dragged their guns many a hundred miles by forced marches both day and night.’ His work of mercy then took him to Delhi, and his later experiences with the gallant sailors brought him hard work and dreadful sights at Lucknow. Green also had to do his time in the trenches and once, while dressing wounds in the field before Lucknow, received a ‘slug’ in the arm [not found in casualty lists]. On another occasion the rebel cavalry came near to cutting off the medical staff, but he managed to escape. He speaks with considerable passion of the hardness before Lucknow. On one occasion, three men of the M.S.C. had to deal with 90 casualties described as ‘mostly blown up cases’. The work lasted day and night with no sleep and little food, so little wonder that men fell out with sunstroke, fatigue and ‘shear wear-out’. His medal roll shows him attached to the field hospital at Lucknow as a 1st Class Orderly.
An accompanying newspaper cutting under the heading, ‘Her father nursed Lady with lamp’ reads: ‘after the Indian Mutiny Mr Green married a Calcutta hospital matron and returned with his wife to England and made his home in Stafford.’ The Indian archives confirm Green married the widow Charlotte Carter, née Pratt (daughter of Benjamin Pratt), on 17 October 1859 at Colaba, Bombay. William Green left India on 22 June 1860, at which time he was discharged from the service.
He became a fish dealer in Stafford and also acquired or managed a thriving public-house. Charlotte died on 18 January 1884 and the couple left no issue. On 9 March 1886, he re-married to 17 year-old Hannah, née Spilsbury. William Green died after a long and painful illness in January 1904.
Sold with a notebook entitled The Domestick Medical Table by an Eminent Physician. William Green, his book, No. 316, Medical Staff Corps, Chatham. It lists diseases and cures for 70 ailments, from ague to chilblains, to be treated by unguents, lotions, powders and poultices using morphia, dandelions, tartarised antimony, caraway seeds, and the frequent use of leeches; together with a fine portrait photograph of William Green in later life wearing his mutiny medal; contemporary copies of his obituaries; a small Holy Bible; and several related press cuttings.

William Green's story was collated from his obituary in the Lichfield Mercury of February 1904, and his war reminiscences from the Staffordshire Chronicle's ‘Old Stafford Heroes’ of 1892. The Florence Nightingale Museum confirms that they hold a letter from Miss Nightingale to William Green.