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Auction: 24003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 193

The very rare Great War M.M. awarded to Nursing Sister M. Hodge, Canadian Army Medical Corps, for her gallantry when No. 3 (Canadian) Stationary Hospital was hit by an enemy Air Raid on 30 May 1918, in the process becoming one of the first two Canadian Nurses rewarded for bravery

Military Medal, G.V.R. (N/Sister M. Hodge. C.A.M.C.), good very fine

Purchased circa 1985.

9 Military Medals awarded to Canadian Nursing Sisters.

M.M. London Gazette 24 September 1918 (Canada Gazette 9 November 1918)

'For gallantry and devotion to duty during an enemy air raid. Although injured by a falling beam, these sisters displayed great presence of mind in extinguishing overturned oil stoves, and later rendered valuable assistance in the removal of patients.'

Meta Hodge was born in January 1882 in Clontibret County, Monaghan, Ireland and by the outbreak of the Great War was a Nurse living at 255 Simcoe Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba and working at the Winnipeg General Hospital. During the Great War she lost two of her brothers to the conflict but herself volunteered to do her part.

Hodge was awarded the M.M., together with Eleanor Thompson, for her gallantry when No. 3 (Canadian) Stationary Hospital, Doullens suffered an Air Raid on 30 May 1918. Despite her wounds she stayed to the task and took the first gallantry award ever bestowed upon a Canadian Woman. She went up to Buckingham Palace to be invested on 13 December 1918 and more recently the CBC featured her acts in their show Women at War:

www.cbc.ca/2017/canadathestoryofus/wwi-how-two-wartime-nurses-became-the-first-canadian-women-to-win-the-military-medal-for-their-bravery-1.4086324

She died in June 1954 and is buried in the Victoria (Ross Bay) Cemetery.

The Canadian War Museum holds another M.M. and Great War Trio to Hodge (No. 19910117-001), but this award exhibits officially impressed naming and appears entirely as issued.

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Estimate
£2,400 to £2,800

Starting price
£2000