Boer War nurse monogram & hallmark

[kingsley]

Not quite a badge but part of an interesting estate lot belonging to Muriel Young, an Australian civilian nurse employed in South Africa in 1902 just after "that bloody woman" publicised the conditions endured by Boer women and children in the concentration camps.
There were a large album of original photos of a large tent city, other nurses, women and children, and routine camp life. Also a silver bangle engraved with her initials and "Irene Burgher Camp 1902", and the monogramed silver vesta case.
I am reasonably sure that the vesta case was hers. I can certainly make out M and Y, not sure of the middle initial. I would be interested to know the date of the hallmarks if someone could help.

[Milmed]

Hi,
I make out the center letter to be an F

The hallmarks are for Birmingham with gothic lower case y (1898)

Would be nice to see some pictures of Muriel and the camp

Thanks
Steven

[kingsley]

Thanks for the hallmark date, nice to know that it is correct to period.
Most of the photos were faded and there was nothing written on the back to identify Muriel or anyone else. It is 25 years since I got the estate lot and I will try to find the copies I kept of the photos, now buried in my files somewhere.
I donated the album to the Bloemfontein Museum because I thought (perhaps wrongly) that this was the best place for further research and identification.
I suspect that the current staff might not be very interested.

[Milmed]

Thanks Kingsley,

Yes donating to a museum did allow the items to be viewed by the general public... which is a good thing.

Unfortunately with our new regime in SA, all they are interested in is Gucci bags, etc. Anything historical means absolutely nothing to these people unless it has some sort of monetary value. They have in the past 5 years or so been running around to every museum in SA to establish the value of every time in a museum collection and allocate a government number to the items... who knows what they are planning to do with this info in the future...

I hope your donated album is still in safe hands.

Steven

[Home Guard]

Sadly, over here if you donate something to a museum, you typically have to sign an agreement that allows them to sell, trade, give away or trash anything at their discretion. For that reason, I do not donate anything to museums.

My son will get my father's stuff, and I will pass on my collection to a very dear friend and collector who I know will appreciate it as much as I do.

Terry

[kingsley]

It MAY be possible to access the album in the museum archives, unless the new regime considered it rubbish and threw it out. The civilians in the pictures were the ancestors of the present generation and maybe someone researching the concentration camps will find the album in years to come.