Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain K. H. A. Kellie, Royal Army Medical Corps, who was killed in action near Albert in June 1916

1914-15 Star (Lieut., R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.), good very fine or better (3) £300-350

Kenneth Harrison Alloa Kellie was born in July 1874, the youngest son of George Kelly of Maida Vale, London and Shanklin, Isle of Wight, a successful printer and publisher - Kenneth assumed the surname of Kellie shortly before the Great War. His brother, Lawrence, was a well-known composer.

Educated at Westminster School and Caius College, Cambridge, and variously in Paris, New York and Boston, he commenced his career in medicine at St. George’s Hospital, where he took the diplomas of M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1900. After holding the posts of Clinical Assistant for out-patients at Paddington Green Children’s Hospital, Assistant House Surgeon at St. George’s Hospital and House Physician at the Victoria Hospital for Children, he was appointed in 1908 Assistant Physician at the Belgrave Hospital for Children, and in 1912 Full Physician. He was also Assistant Physician at the Royal Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. Notwithstanding such a busy agenda, Kellie still found time to row for the London Rowing Club at Henley and other regattas.

Having served as a Special Constable after the declaration of war in August 1914, he obtained a commission as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps in April 1915 and went to France on attachment to the Guards Brigade in the following month. He was advanced to Captain in April of the following year, on joining the Canadian Contingent as second senior M.O., but was killed in action near Albert on 25 June 1916, aged 41 years, while attached to the 104th Field Ambulance.

In his last Will and Testamant, Kellie left £1000 to the Belgrave Hospital for Children.