Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, Waziristan 1919-21 (Lt-Col. P. Lauder, R.A.M.C.) good very fine

Francis Pius Lauder was born on 16 June 1875 at Fort Bombay, India. Educated at St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, he studied Medicine at Edinburgh University, gaining the L.R.C.P. (Edinburgh), L.R.F.P.S. (Glasgow) and D.P.H. (Edinburgh). He entered the R.A.M.C. as a Lieutenant in 1900, becoming a Captain in 1903 and Major in 1912. Serving in the Great War he was appointed Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel in July 1915 and Lieutenant-Colonel in December 1917. Lieutenant-Colonel Lauder served overseas in India 1901-06, Sierra Leone 1908-09, with the British Expeditionary Force in France 1914-15 and 1915-16 and in India 1917-21. He was placed on Retired Pay in 1923 and ceased to be in the Reserve of Officers during 1930. Re-employed as a Major in April 1940, he ceased to be employed due to ill health. He was restored to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in November 1947.

Retiring to Plymouth, his last years were dogged by ill health and he suffered the amputation of his right leg in 1949. He died in an horrific accident on 22 September 1951. Suffering continually from the pain to his amputated leg, the Colonel was in the habit of taking both morphine and sleeping tablets at night. He was also in the habit of smoking his pipe in bed. He was found by his valet on the morning of the 22nd, dead, on the floor of his bedroom, badly burned, his bed having caught fire. A constable at the inquest stated that Colonel Lauder’s pyjamas were burned off him and he had extensive burns on the face, arms, back and legs and that the bedclothes were burned and in the folds there were pipe-scrapings and a burnt box of matches. The inquest found that Colonel Lauder had died from shock due to accidental burning. The coroner commenting, ‘He probably took an injection before settling in for the night which prevented him feeling the pain of burning until it was very severe’. Sold with copied photogaphs and newspaper cuttings with other research.