Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare ‘Samana 1891’ D.S.O. in a unique group of five awarded to Surgeon-General Robert Harvey, M.D., C.B., D.S.O., F.R.C.P., Indian Medical Service, latterly Director-General of the Indian Medical Service

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, C.B. (Military) Companion’s breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with swivel ring and straight bar suspension and silver-gilt buckle on ribbon; Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, complete with brooch bar; Jubilee 1897, silver, unnamed; India General Service 1854-95, 4 clasps, Bhootan, Looshai, Samana 1891, Hazara 1891 (Asst. Surgn. R. Harvey, 31st N.I.) official correction to ‘31st’; India General Service 1895-1902, 1 clasp, Punjab Frontier 1897-98 (Major Gl. R. Harvey, I.M.S.) mounted for display, very fine (5) £4000-5000

C.B. London Gazette 21 December 1898.

D.S.O. London Gazette 19 December 1891.

Surgeon-General Robert Harvey was born in 1842, the son of Alexander Harvey M.D. of Broomhill, Aberdeen, Scotland. He entered the Bengal Medical Service in 1865, served with the Bhootan Expedition in 1865 for which he received his first campaign medal and clasp. He subsequently served with the Lushai Expedition 1871-72 (despatches). Robert married in 1877, to Ermine Josephine Grimke-Drayton, daughter of Theodore Grimke-Drayton of Ashley Grange and Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America. He became Surgeon Major 1877 and was promoted to Brigade Surgeon 1888; served as P.M.O. with both Miranzai Expeditions - as commemorated by his third clasp to the IGS 1854 for 'Samana 1891', in which campaigns he was twice mentioned-in-despatches, and created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O.) which was presented to him in India on 22 July 1892. He became Deputy Surgeon-General, 1891; served with the Hazara Field Force, 1891, and with the Isazai Expedition, 1892, as Principal Medical Officer (P.M.O.), and again mentioned-in-despatches; formerly Inspector-General of Hospitals, Bengal; appointed P.M.O. to Punjab Forces, 1895; became Surgeon-Major-General 1895; was a Fellow of the Calcutta University and of the Obstetrical Society. He was created a C.B. in 1898 and in the same year appointed Director-General of the Indian Medical Service. Harvey died in Simla, India, on 1 December 1901. After his death a subscription for a memorial for the late Surgeon-General Harvey was started in India, subscriptions being sent to the Indian Medical Gazette care of Messers. Thacker, Spink and Co., Calcutta, India.

The Gazette of India for December 7th contained the following notification:

‘His Excellency the Governor-General in Council has received with much regret intelligence of the death at Simla , on the 1st inst., of Surgeon-General Robert Harvey, M.D., C.B., D.S.O., F.R.C.P., I.M.S. (Bengal), the Director General of the India Medical Service and Sanitary Inspector for the Government of India. Surgeon-General Harvey had only just returned from furlough to resume the duties of of the Director-Generalship, a post to which he was first appointed in February 1898, after an honourable service extending over thirty years. By his death, towards the close of a long and distinguished career, the Government of India lose a valued public servant and trusted adviser.’

The Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, of December 8th, gives details of his last illness and death:

‘He returned from eight months leave, necessitated by illness in the spring of the present year, and had been working as few others could work for just eight days, when at the end of seven hours unbroken application at his desk (and it may be added as characteristic, an eight hours fast) he was seized with the first symptoms of his fatal malady. Next day (26th) he was confined to bed, from which he only rose again to be carried to hospital, where, after four days of suffering he expired on Sunday morning, December 1st. The bright and memorable aspects of this tragic end to a career marked by extraordinary many-sided talents and success, were the magnificent pluck he displayed in facing the issue, of which he was not long in doubt, and the devotion he inspired in his medical attendants, one of whom never left his bedside day or night, save for the briefest intervals, to be replaced by another. If it certainly cannot be said of him that he was happy on the occasion of his death, it must be recorded that he never flinched for one moment from the ordeal and the final summons. After a private service at the Boileaugunj Church on Monday morning, his body was cremated, in accordance with his expressed desire, and on the following day the last mortal remains were carried to the cemetery and interred with military honours, the coffin and urn being carried to the last resting-place by six members of the service he served, and loved, and adored.

Surgeon-General Harvey became officiating Professor of Midwifery at the Medical College, Calcutta, in 1880, and was appointed Professor in 1882. He held this office till March, 1900, and a friend who had long been associated with him in his work writes as follows of this side of his work: "As a lecturer, Surgeon-General Harvey was characterised for imparting a maximum instruction in a minimum of words, and a forcible delivery secured to many a practitioner a solid grounding in the special subjects of midwifery and diseases of women. In these subjects he commanded a large practice while in Calcutta, and was a universal consultant, and his services to the Eden Hospital rank high in his long and successful career. As a physician he was looked upon more as a friend than a doctor, and as an administrator he was held in high esteem." The same friend adds: "He emphatically owned nearly all, if not all, his success and honours to his many sided ability and his consuming energy. He certainly was never a dull placeman and bureaucrat, but turned to the work in hand, whether as soldier-surgeon in his regiment in peace or war, or as the skilful operating surgeon and consultant, or as the administrative head of his service, with an ardent interest that only seemed to grow with the lapse of years. With all the engrossing business of such a life, he was a scholar as regards general and professional literature, and his amazing memory for men and events, even the most trifling, including precedents and regulations, was one of the chief elements of his power as an administrator. He was intensely interested in the service, in its past and its future, in which he was a firm believer, and his kindly sympathy and encouragement was always at the service of its members.’

With some copied research including his obituary.