Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War M.C. group of five awarded to Captain L. T. Whelan, F.R.C.S.I, Royal Army Medical Corps, attached 8th London Regiment (Post Office Rifles)

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse inscribed ‘Capt. L. T. Whelan, R.A.M.C. Attd. 8th London Regt. (P.O.R.) 29.5.1917’; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (L. T. Whelan, F.R.C.S. Surgeon); 1914-15 Star (Lieut., R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.) mounted as worn, good very fine (5) £800-1000

M.C. London Gazette 4 June 1917.

M.I.D. London Gazette 29 May 1917.

Lauder Thomas Whelan served in the South African War as a civil surgeon, including the relief of Kimberley; operations in Orange Free State, February to May 1900, including operations at Paardeberg and action at Driefontein; operations in the Transvaal, May to June 1900, including the actions near Johannesburg and Diamond Hill (Queen’s medal with five clasps).

Whelan joined the R.A.M.C. Territorial Force as a Sanitary Officer in January 1909 and was attached to the 8th London Regiment (Post Office Rifles) T.F. upon the outbreak of war in 1914. He served with the Post Office Rifles in France and Flanders from March 1915 and was present throughout the severe fighting of 1915 and 1916 during which the regiment suffered severely. So much so that the ‘Interpreter noted that of the officers who sat down to a somewhat belated Christmas dinner, only three had been present at the same function the year before - Deverell, Fairlie the Quartermaster and Whelan the Doctor. None of the company commanders was a Post Office Rifleman, and it was a further indication of what a hard year 1916 had been.’