Militaria

Lot 4190    SESSION 10 (9.30AM FRIDAY 27TH NOVEMBER)    Militaria

Estimate $100
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $140

BOER WAR VESTA CASE, in silver, hallmarked for London 1887 by maker, JH (Joseph Hirst), one side inscribed 'T.S.H./From/J.R./Feb.1899', stuffed inside are QSA and KSA medal ribbons. Toned, otherwise very fine.

Together with original sale card that states that the vesta case belonged to Thomas Stawell Hutchings and was purchased from one of his descendents.

1297 Thomas Stawell Hutchings, Commonwealth Army Medical Corps (Victoria), departed as Corporal and served in the Boer War. As a member of the Army reserves he was promoted to L/Sergeant and then to Sergeant on 1 April 1902. On 5 February 1907 he was appointed Captain in the Army Medical Corps (Vic) as a supernumerary and brought onto the fixed establishment on 22 March 1907.

Thomas passed the final qualifying examination of the Pharmacy Board in April 1901. Then in December 1906 he was conferred with a Bachelor of Medicine degree from the University of Melbourne. On 18 January 1910 he married Margaret Jamieson M.B., B.S. at Scots Church, Melbourne and set up a medical practice at Euroa. Unfortunately, he met with a fatal accident and died on 20 January 1914 at the age of 37. He was returning by rail from Queensland when apparently he fell from the train. At about 6 o'clock in the morning the driver of a goods train found his body lying on the tracks at Breadalbane near Goulburn in New South Wales badly mutilated and with the right leg cut off.

It is interesting to note that his father, Thomas Hutchings, was a former councillor (1881-96) and president (1886-87) of the Shire of Stawell and no doubt that is why his son was named Thomas Stawell Hutchings.