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Auction: 17002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 97

A rare Africa General Service Medal awarded to Dr. W. J. Healy, who witnessed active service in Northern Nigeria in 1903, prior to his untimely death at Lokoja in the following year

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, N. Nigeria 1903 (Dr. W. J. Healy, N.N. Regt.), minor scratches to obverse, good very fine

Walter James Healy was probably Irish. He trained to be a doctor at the Adelaide Medical and Surgical Hospitals and the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland in Dublin, becoming a Licentiate of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Surgeons of Ireland in 1896 and also a Licentiate of Midwifery of the Rotunda Lying-In Hospital, Dublin. Between 1900 and 1903, he gave his address as 21 Sydney Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin.

In 1897, he was recorded as working in partnership with three other doctors, F. Bennett, J. A. Nealon and W. Taynton, in practice at Linton House, Linton, Cambridgeshire. Healy seems to have left that partnership by 1899, in which year he may have joined the Colonial Office and been posted to Western Australia.

By 1903, he was able to describe himself as, 'late J.P. and Med. Off., Leonora, West. Australia; Res. Magistrate and Med. Off., Wyndham, W.A., & Lt. & Med. Off. 8th Bn., Commonwealth Horse (Boer War).' The Colonial Office List for 1900 confirms his status as a Resident Magistrate, but for East Kimberley in Western Australia. Murray's Official Records of the Australian Military Contingents to the War in South Africa confirms his rank and status on the staff of the 8th Battalion, Australian Commonwealth Horse in 1902 but states that he was an officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps.

In The Medical Directory for 1904 he was noted as being stationed at Lokoja in Northern Nigeria and so may have been one of the 22 unnamed Medical Officers employed by the Colonial Office in that recently established Protectorate.

The National Archives regimental roll that confirms his entitlement to this Medal and clasp notes that he died on 16 February 1904. A note of his death, at Lokoja, appeared in The Medical Directory for 1906.

Reference sources:

Murray, Lt.-Col. P. L., Official Records of the Australian Military Contingents to the War in South Africa (Melbourne, 1911).
The Colonial Office List 1900-04.
The National Archives: WO 100/392
The Medical Directory 1897, 1899, 1900-06.



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£650