Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare Queen’s South Africa Medal awarded to Orderly J. R. S. Anderson, Scottish Hospital, later Medical Officer (temporary Lieutenant), Cumberland Motor Volunteer Corps

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State (Ord: J. R. S. Anderson. Scottish Hos:) edge bruising, very fine £300-£400

Provenance: John Chidzey Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2012.

James Richard Sunner Anderson, a medical student from Glasgow, served as an Orderly with the Scottish Hospital in South Africa during the Boer War; the Hospital was organised in the first instance by the St Andrew’s Association and was funded by voluntary donations. The organisation of the hospital commenced in January 1900, the personnel eventually consisting of an officer in charge, 18 civil medical officers, 1 Quartermaster, 1 Warrant Officer, 2 secretaries, 35 nursing sisters of the Army Nursing Service Reserve, 45 first-class orderlies, all of whom were medical students, and 57 second-class orderlies, making a total of 160.

The first section arrived at Cape Town on 13 May 1900, and the hospital was opened for patients on 4 June, at Kroonstadt. Previous to that time however, the hospital staff had been employed on duty in the military hospitals at Bloemfontein and Kroonstadt. It remained during the whole period at Kroonstadt, and its equipment was handed over to the Government, when it ceased to exist as a private hospital, on 14 October 1900.

Anderson qualified in 1904, and the 1913 Medical Register shows working at Cumberland and Westmoreland Asylum. He was appointed Medical Officer (temporary Lieutenant) in the Cumberland Motor Volunteer Corps on 17 March 1918.