Abstract
Further to the recent editorial and paper on this subject, 1,2 military surgeons had only become eligible for military honours just six years before the Victoria Cross was instituted in 1856. Until 1850 they had been eligible only for civil awards and indeed George James Guthrie (1785–1856) had previously declined the Civil Order of the Bath which he considered to be inappropriate and degrading. 3
It was as a result of lobbying instituted by William Penny Brookes (1809–95), a surgeon–apothecary in Much Wenlock, that military surgeons became eligible for the Military Order of the Bath in 1850. 3,4 In practice this tended to be awarded only to more senior officers, but all military surgeons became entitled to awards for bravery following the courageous actions of naval surgeons during a battle at Lagos in 1852. 5
There were, however, no military surgeons in the first list of 84 names gazetted for the award of the Victoria Cross in February 1857. 6 In the light of much anecdotal evidence of heroism by military surgeons and the award by the French Government of the decoration of Knight of the Legion of Honour to 16 British army and navy surgeons, the British Medical Journal considered that ‘our professional brethren have been without doubt slighted’. 7 Following other remonstrances in the medical press, the first award of the Victoria Cross to a military surgeon, Thomas Egerton Hale (1833–1910),was gazetted on 5 May 1857. 8 Hale was the only doctor to receive his award from Queen Victoria in Hyde Park on 26 June 1857. 9 Contrary to what has been stated, 1,2 the name of Henry Thomas Sylvester was not among those listed as present on that occasion. 9 Although the act of heroism for which he received the Victoria Cross took place on 8 September 1855, Sylvester's award was not gazetted until 18 November 1857, nearly five months after the ceremony in Hyde Park. 10