A Fine Collection of Medals to Female Medics

Peter White

Peter White spent his working life as a designer and draughtsman with the research department of the B.B.C., which helped develop his personal interest in areas such as photography, radio, early television and local history. The interest in local history led him into coins. Once Peter retired those interests of his continued apace, and soon began to include an interest in nursing ephemera, as his wife Violet had been a nurse. It was a chance purchase of some Great War nursing postcards, that had a pair of medals with them, that led him into the world of medal collecting.

I first met Peter 12 years ago when he came to a Noonans (Dix Noonan Webb as it then was) auction at the Washington Hotel. I enquired how long he had been collecting, and he replied that he had only started collecting when he was 82 years old, and having just turned 91 he had to get on with it before he got too old! I often regale this story when collectors ask me where the young collectors are and I say why ask when you have collectors beginning in their 80’s!

Peter’s ambition was to publish a book on nursing medals, and it was the need to acquire more examples that drove his medal collecting. Sadly his intended book never came to fruition, but his collection consumed his remaining years and it gave him great satisfaction that he was still collecting beyond the age of 100. The wonderful array of nursing medals in this collection is both a fitting tribute to him, but also a personal final tribute to his beloved wife Violet, the mother of his five children who, having raised their family, finally achieved her childhood dream of training for and pursuing a nursing career.
C.B.M.-H.