Full medal write up
SOUTH AFRICA 1877-79, CLASP, 1877 ‘CIVIL PRACTR. E.S. STEVENSON.’, BRITISH WAR MEDAL 1914-20 ‘LT-COL. SIR. E.S. STEVENSON SAMC’
Edmond Sinclair Stevenson was born at Geneva in July 1850, son of William Ford and Aeneasena Stevenson of Fosse, Caithness. Clearly imbued from an early age with a sense of adventure and longing to travel, Stevenson was variously educated at Geneva, Paris, Berlin, London and Edinburgh - it was at this latter place that he studied Medicine and Surgery in particular. By family repute, it was on a visit to South Africa that he then volunteered for service during the Ninth Xhosa War (Medal and Clasp) where he became a senior medical officer; he then decided to settle in South Africa and in 1880 married Emily Anna d'Urban Musgrave Eaton.
Stevenson swiftly found his feet in the colony, becoming not just a well-known physician but a pillar of society and the wider community: he became President of the Medical Council of South Africa; was additionally President of the British Medical Association and South African Medical Congress; held the post of Physician-in-Ordinary to the High Commissioner, Lord Milner; and to crown these achievements was made Knight Bachelor in 1905. Perhaps unsurprisingly, due to his position he is also noted - via personal correspondence - as both a friend and medical adviser to Cecil Rhodes and Sir Leander Starr Jameson - indeed his name appears upon Rhodes's post-mortem, carried out at 12.30am on 27 March 1902.
Seeing further military service during the Great War - being appointed Temporary Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel in the South African Medical Corps - Stevenson died in April 1927. The accompanying archive includes:
1) An original portrait photograph of Stevenson, in Court Dress and wearing a miniature South Africa 1877-79 Medal
His original Grant of Dignity as a Knight Bachelor, vellum with original large wax seal, contained in its original red morocco-leather box with gilt edging and Royal Coat-of-Arms at centre.
3) His original certificate appointing him a Justice of the Peace for the District of Wynberg, dated 17 March 1905.
4) His original Commissioning document, appointing him to be a Temporary Honorary Lieutenant- Colonel in the Union Defence Forces, dated 1 November 1914 and signed by The Viscount Buxton as Governor-General.
5) Two original letters, one confirming a grant of £200 per annum to Stevenson for "services as Medical adviser to the late Mr. Rhodes and Sir Starr Jameson"; one from Lord Milner to Lord Bertie concerning Stevenson and mentioning him thus: "Dr. Stevenson had, I think, the best practice in South Africa in my time, and was held in high esteem both personally and professionally."
6) A small file of research comprising copies of the aforementioned letters; an extract from Who Was Who; a letter from Stevenson's son with some details of his father's life; and a copied photograph of Cecil Rhodes's death certificate.
Stevenson is incorrect noted in several sources as having served during the Boer War and probably confused with his previous service during the South African War (1877-8). His son, who wrote a detailed biography of his father (included with the research), mentions service in the latter and WW1 only. The CDV photo, in which he certainly appears to be older than 50, shows him wearing a miniature SA 1877 only and he has not been found on an rolls for the Boer War. Seeing no overseas service during the Great War, he was entitled to the British War medal only.
Just 170 1877 clasped medals out of a total of 38,957 South Africa 1877-9 medals issued, making this an extremely scarce clasp.
Condition NEF. An extremely rare group to an important South African Physician in both a Medallic and historically sense and almost certainly the only 1877 clasp medal awarded to a man who was later knighted.