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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: Canuc on Wednesday 27 April 16 01:18 BST (UK)
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We've only just had "The Crimson Field" shown here in Canada, it seems that this is another programme that I quite enjoyed that didn't get past season one, tante pis.
I have a question though Sister Quayle wears the tibbon of the Royal Red Cross on her tippet but what is teh medal that Matron Carter wears? (photo here http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-crimson-field-tv-review-a-bbc-drama-that-cant-decide-what-its-about-9256610.html#gallery )
The closest I can get to it the Ashanti medal, which does fit if she was brought up in India, but i think the proportions of the stripes are wrong. It might also be the India General Service medal (1895-1902), which is the right time frame, but the ribbon in the photo and the example I've looked at don't quite match for colour.
Any thoughts on that ribbon?
Also, given that the time period chronicled leads up to Oct 1915 wouldn't both of these nurses be entitled to wear the ribbon of the 1914 Star?
Thank you
Canuc
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The Ashanti medal, given to those who served in Africa in Gold Coast, now Ghana. About 1901.
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Canuc WW1 campaign medals and stars wouldn't have been issued until 1918 at the earliest.
Ady
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I agree with your identification of the ribbon as the India General Service Medal (1895). The patterning looks right with the equal bands of Red/Green/Red/Green/Red. It is hard to tell the exact colours of the original from the various examples on the internet. :)
The Queen Alexandra's Military Nursing Service for India was a separate, though parallel, organization to the QAIMNS until the two were combined in the 1920s.
The Indian GSM was replaced in 1909, so it would seem Matron Carter served in India some time between 1895 and 1909.
Maec
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The medal is the Queen Alexandra (of Denmark) medal for QA officers. It is based upon that country's order of Danneberg.
Ken
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Ken's right. http://www.qaranc.co.uk/qa-officer-medal.php
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A bit of confusion stepping in here I think. The two Sisters and Matron all wear the QA Officer Medal on their right (our left as viewed).
The OP had rightly identified the medal ribbon worn on the left (our right) by Sister Quayle as the Royal Red Cross and asked us to identify the medal ribbon, also on the left, worn by Matron Carter. This has equal bands of Red/Green/Red/Green/Red and I stand by my identification of it as the India General Service Medal (1895)
Maec
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Hi Maec
I do not see your point. I answered a question about the medal.
Ken
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The main problem here is taking anything about the nurses portrayed on 'The Crimson Field' as accurate. A programme that can't be bothered to get the most simple details right is hardly going to bother about medals. As has already been pointed out the Indian Nursing Service was entirely separate to QAIMNS prior to 1926 and quite impossible for a QAIMNS Matron to have the India General Service Medal. Presumably the ribbon was displayed to give some credence to Grace Carter speaking fluent Punjabi though there's some discussion even then about what she was speaking and what she was meant to speak. Surprising though she wasn't wearing ribbons of the Queen's/King's South Africa Medal which would have been very likely.
And yes, I've been told dozens of times that 'it's a drama not a documentary'. Flagship drama by the BBC for the Centenary, so inaccurate that it never earned the expected further series and was dropped. Luckily.
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Ken , it was the ribbon, worn without its medal, I am curious about not the medal & ribbon combination worn on the right by all the senior nursing staff, as a registered nurse at an earlier age I knew what that was (I posses similar). Quayle's ribbon of the Royal Red Cross I recognised, but not the ribbon worn on the left by Matron.
Are we agreed that, accuracy of the portrayal notwithstanding, that the medal ribbon worn on the left, and given that I believe Matron Carter indicated that she had lived in India and we have the evidence of a relationship with the Indian Sergeant, is that of the India General Service medal?
Acknowledging Ady's observation about "Pip, Squeak and Alfred", am I correct to believe that both Quayle and Carter would have been entitled to wear those medals once issued?
Happy hunting
Canuc
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I was answering this part of your original post - but what is teh medal that Matron Carter wears?
I believe nurses could be awarded all WW1 medals and awards apart from the Mons Clasp and Silver War Badge. Here is the NAs guide to WW1 medals - http://www.greatwar.co.uk/medals/ww1-campaign-medals.htm
I believe when the Western Front Association rescued the WW1 cards that ended up on Ancestry, The ones for nurses and the navy went elsewhere. So you need to use the NA's downloads.
From Ancestry "The women’s records currently held at the Imperial War Museum, as well as the Military Medal collection and Indian Army cards, are not presently included in this database."
Nurses received the two Boer War medals, but the Queens South Africa medal was without clasps. Someone on the British Medal Forum will know about the other two mentioned - Ashanti and IGSM (1895) or you can look on Ancestry.
Ken
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All nurses, both trained and untrained could qualify for the Silver War Badge and the rolls name several hundred who did so.
Two women were awarded the IGSM 1895 with Clasp Punjab Frontier 1897-8, one a member of the Indian Army Nursing Service and the other a civil hospital nurse, and one woman, a children's nurse in a British officer's family, was awarded the IGSM 1895 with Clasps Punjab Frontier 1897-8 and Samana 1897.
And going back to Misses Carter and Quayle, they would have received either the 1914 or 1915 Star depending on when they arrived in France.
Sue
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Good morning,
I'm not sure what period of the war this was set. The 1914 star was instituted by special order 350 in Nov 1917. So presumably before that date as no one has any WW1 ribbons.
The 1914/15 star was instituted in Dec 1918.
Although the ribbons were issued during the war the medals were not given until after the war, 1920 I believe.
There was also a clasp for the 1914 star given to those who served within range of enemy Mobile artillery. I assume that the hospital was in the rear out of range of such.
John915
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All nurses, both trained and untrained could qualify for the Silver War Badge
Thanks for this.
Regarding 1914 Star ribbons, the medal roll for Regulars of the Liverpool Regiment was not compiled until September 1918, so it is unlikely they received the two pieces of ribbon for the uniform before war's end.
The Liverpool Scottish by contrast compiled the 1914 Star roll in March 1918, allowing you would think enough time for both the tunic ribbons and medal to be delivered by the end of the war. But my great uncle's record has a receipt for the medal dated April 1921. As he was killed in action (in 1916), and the medal did not go to his next of kin, but someone specified in his will, 'special cases' may have been set aside until they had processed delivery to the living.
Ken
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The 1914 Star medal roll for nurses was compiled in August 1918, but no ribbons issued until after the end of the war, though it's not unusual to see photos of nurses wearing the ribbon while still in France, though some of those were serving until 1920. And the first date I can see in the nurses' SWB Roll is 5th October 1916, though because of the multitude of different units it's a bit piecemeal.
There's been some interesting research going on recently, and yet to be published, which concludes that although a handful of nurses 'qualified' for the Clasp to the 1914 Star these were later found 'ineligible' - for no good reason it seems. They were invariably on early ambulance trains which came under enemy fire. Not rare to see Clasps with nurses' medal groups of course, and it's an area which is much discussed and disagreed with.
Sue
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Moderator:
I'm not able to change the title to include "completed" and the tick mark doesn't appear to mean anything to people. My question has been answered, and for that I am grateful, but the discussion is drifting of topic - time to move this one into the completed file.
I was interested because I count amongst four generations of nurses in my family, five in total, three of us male and the eldest a VAD in the very war we have been discussing. Nurses being recognized for their part in the war effort matters and I now know that I need to let a cousin know that she needs to investigate Great Aunt Win's medal entitlement.
Again, many thanks to people for answering my question(s).
Happy hunting
Canuc