Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Homage to Marie Depage and Edith Cavell, 1915, by A. Bonnetain for Fonson, conjoined busts left, rev. ‘1915 Remember!’, 60mm., bronze-gilt medallion, Ref: B.H.M. 4115; Eimer 1943, extremely fine

Marie Depage, and her husband, the surgeon Antoine Depage, founded the first nursery school in Belgium, of which Edith Cavell had been the first director. Marie Depage had been to the USA to raise funds for wounded soldiers and was returning to Europe on the SS Lusitania when the ship was destroyed by the Germans on 7 May 1915 – she was one of the 1,200 people who lost their lives. Edith Cavell was executed by the Germans in 1915 for helping stranded Allied soldiers