£150 - £250
CRIMEAN WAR. AN UNUSUAL VICTORIAN SAILOR'S PAINTED CARD UNION JACK PUZZLE of pink cotton taped folding stout card with handwritten directions in red and black ink, enclosure slip to Miss Veysie inscribed The Seamen of Her Majesty's Navy to Miss Veysie in Remembrance of Therapia, British Channel, April 1858 with original wrapper addressed to the same at King's College Hospital London, WC, postally used with six 1d reds with Dover and London CDS (October 8 1859) and wax seal impressions, losses
In November 1854, following Florence Nightingale's success at Scutari Hospital the Admiralty decided to send out "tried and approved nurses" (selected by the Ladies Committee in London) and establish a 40 bed hospital at Therapia. Many of the patients were to be marines and men of the Naval Brigade from the Siege of Sevastopol. In January 1855 the Reverend & Mrs McKenzie arrived with a small party of ladies and nurses. Mrs McKenzie, an experienced nurse, having trained at the Middlesex Hospital had as one of her three assistants Penelope Gertrude Veysie (1807-1891).
A number of the nursing staff proved inadequate or incapable and soon left or were dismissed. Later many tributes were paid to the quality of the management of the small hospital and the ensuing parliamentary report stated "They shrank from no kind of employment however dangerous or laborious nor was there any office connected with the sick which they deemed to be low or demeaning... Miss Veysie remained behind until the termination of the war happily brought her labours to a close... their services will live long in the grateful remembrance of the officers, seamen and marines who fought before Sevastopol".
Gertrude Veysie was one of the recipients of the extremely rare Ottoman Gold Nursing Award, 1856 (sold Morton & Eden Ltd, 28 June 2018, lot 631).
Fees apply to the hammer price:
Room and Absentee Bids:
24% inc VAT*
Online and Autobids:
25.8% inc VAT*
