Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell

Six: Miss Dorothy Minnie Newhall, British Red Cross Society & Order of St. John of Jerusalem and Serbian Relief Fund

1914 Star, with copy clasp (D. M. Newhall, B.R.C.S. &O. St. J.J.); Serbia, Order of St. Sava, 2nd type, 4th Class, silver-gilt and enamel, slight enamel damage; Oblitch Bravery Medal, silvered bronze; Medal for Zeal, silvered bronze; Serbian Retreat Medal 1915, silver and bronze; Cross of Mercy, enamelled, very fine and better (lot) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell.

View
Collection

Nursing Sister Dorothy Minnie Newhall, British Red Cross Society entered France on 29 October 1914. She then served with the Serbian Relief Fund as a Sanitary Inspector, 1 April 1915-27 August 1919. Miss Newhall is listed as having served as a Nursing Sister with the Stobart Hospital at Kragujevatz.

With silver identity bracelet inscribed, ‘D. A. M. Newhall 1914 R.A.M.C. France .... 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919 .....’ and ‘3.9.39 1 York Chambers, London Argo 244/1’, some inscription obscure due to wear; also with a ‘Serbian Relief Fund’ lapel badge, enamelled; ‘S.R.F.’ collar dog and a cloth ‘four-chevron’ badge; also with riband bars. Also with a Foreign Office letter dated 24 June 1927 to accompany a diploma from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for her services rendered during the war in connection with relief work in Serbia; with framed and glazed certificate of award for the Oblitch Medal; framed and glazed certificate of award for the Serbian Retreat Medal 1915 (Cross of Mercy not confirmed); a translation; an accompanying letter; copied m.i.c. - stating ‘not entitled to BWM & VM’; details of the provenance of the medals, including her will, and some biographical details in which Miss Newhall is several times mentioned. One such:

‘I found Dot Newhall the friendliest and jolliest of the hospital staff. She was their sanitary inspector. She told me that the hospital was a paradise to what it had been when they arrived. It had been used by the Bulgars and the filth was indescribable. I came across her because the scandal of my bug. I had three sleepless nights - one with a louse, next with a mouse, which ran over my face, and the third, at the hospital, with a bug. When I found how deeply Dot Newhall took the bug to heart I Protested that I had brought it with me - I hadn’t realised what an insult and reproach a bug would be to a sanitary inspector in an English hospital (!)’