Dr Long, Colonial Doctor and Dinosaur hunter

[dante]

Single British war medal "E.C. Long" French Red Cross (Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois). Colonial Doctor and Dinosaur hunter

Edward Charles Long was the son of George Long.He married Hilda Charlotte Harrison, daughter of Edward Francis Harrison and Lilian Young Reily, on 20 July 1899.

Edward died on 28 August 1940. He was Companion, Order of St. Michael and St. George (C.M.G.) and Principal Medical Officer Basutoland
He lived Kingston, Hampshire

Edward C. Long, medical practitioner, followed various commercial pursuits until the age of 21, when he came to South Africa to relieve the symptoms of tuberculosis.

After private study he matriculated through the University of the Cape of Good Hope in 1882. Upon his return to England he studied medicine at Middlesex Hospital and, after winning two gold medals and several scholarships and prizes, qualified as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS, England) and a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London (LRCP) in 1889.

He returned to South Africa that same year to join the Basutoland Medical Service, of which he was the principal medical officer by 1896, stationed in Maseru. He remained in this post until at least 1906.

On 15 April 1890 he was licensed to practise medicine in the Orange Free State, and on 8 July 1898 to practise in the Cape Colony. He was a member of the (second) South African Medical Association and from July 1896 or earlier to at least April 1897 edited the Notes section of the South African Medical Journal (second series).

In 1899 he married Hilda C. Harrison, but they had no children.
In 1904 Dr Long compiled notes on the geology of Lesotho.

He was awarded a no bar Queens South Africa medal for his service in the Basutoland civil service during the South African War

During the next year he presented dinosaurian remains to the South African Museum in Cape Town.

That same year he became a member of the South African Philosophical Society, but remained a member for only a year or two.

By 1906 he had also joined the Geological Society of South Africa, and by 1910 the South African Association for the Advancement of Science.

He was then still living in Maseru. In 1911 he visited the leper hospital at Sydenham [presumably the suburb of London].

During World War I (1914-1918) he served with the French Red Cross in France (1916), serving with the Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois.

Hôpital Temporaire d’Arc-en-Barrois was a voluntary civilian British hospital unit established in the Château d'Arc-en-Barrois, Haute-Marne, France, for the aid of wounded French soldiers in the Great War. Founded in January 1915 under approval of the Anglo-French Hospital Committee of the British Red Cross Society, London, the hospital of 110 beds was conducted under military command of the French army's Service de Santé.

The hospital's first military casualties arrived on 27 January 1915 from the Argonne Forest battle front. In February 1915 the regional Service de Santé requested an expansion of hospital services and a convalescent hospital was established in the vacant village hospice building, bringing the total number of beds to 180.

Located sixty miles or more to the rear of the war's entrenched front lines, Hôpital Temporaire supported the casualties from Verdun (1916) and the Meuse-Argonne Campaign (1918). 
Throughout the war wounded soldiers arrived in Haute-Marne via hospital train through Latrecey-Ormoy-sur-Aube, a remote station located 11 miles from Arc-en-Barrois, and were transported to the château aboard Hôpital Temporaire's small motor ambulance fleet.

Wounded and sick soldiers were attended in hospital by a staff of female trained nurses, a small contingent of surgeons and medical students and female auxiliary hospital staff provided by the British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.).

Hôpital Temporaire's voluntary hospital personnel included a significant number of writers, poets, artists and illustrators.

Kathleen Scott, the Rodin-trained sculptress and widow of the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, organized and led the hospital's small auto ambulance service in early 1915. 
Henry Tonks, painter, Slade Art School Professor and trained physician was among the hospital's founding staff.

Tonks served between January and April 1915 as hospital anaesthetist and ward physician.

John Masefield, Britain's future Poet Laureate, served a six week term as a volunteer orderly during the spring of 1915.

The English poet Laurence Binyon, volunteered as a hospital orderly during 1915 and 1916.

His ward experiences among wounded French soldiers inspired his poems, "Fetching the Wounded", "The Distant Guns", "Men of Verdun", and "La Patrie".

That same year Dr Long published a paper on "An analysis of 300 consecutive laparotomies at Maseru" in the South African Medical Record (Vol. 14, pp. 132-135).

In 1921 he was honoured by the British government as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG).

He retired in 1922 after 32 years service

[peter monahan]

What a wonderful story!  It's fascinating to see the vestiges of the Victorian social system at work in the great war, with unofficial and semi-official units and efforst springign up and, of course, the upper classes 'doing their bit' for King and Empire.  

In fact, if there was mch to be admired in the Empire it was that sense of obligation - now often stigmatized by reference to 'the white man's burden' - which inspired many Britions.  I often allude, when the topic comes up, to a plaque on the wall of St Paul's in Londion.  It commemorates 4 brothers, the eldest of whom was 28 at his death.  Three were in the West African colonial service and one in the Indian Army.  All died of one or more tropical disease, prorably nastily, and it's safe to guess that none got or intended to get rich on the proceeds of imperialism.  But I digress!

Again, a lovely narrative to add to a single artifact.  Thanks for posting it.

[Brett Hendey]

Thank you for a most interesting post.  That is indeed a wonderful story.  Basutoland (now Lesotho) is renowned in the palaeotological world for its dinosaur fossils, but even more so now for some of the earliest fossil mammals found anywhere in the world.  The remains of these tiny creatures were spotted by sharp eyes during the cleaning of much large dinosaur bones.  I spent 25 years working at the South African Museum in Cape Town, and my first fossil-collecting trip in 1962 was to Lesotho and the nearby northern Cape Province, hence my interest in this post.

Also, I now have a particular interest in the Anglo-Boer War, and I had not known of QSA medals being awarded to civilians in Basutoland.  Such a medal would be as rare as the mammal fossils from that country!

Regards

Brett

[dante]

Thanks Brett, Peter for your comments, what a wonderful group it would be all together, just need a photo of the gallant Doctor!! 

[dante]

Further information has come to my attention that Dr Long was not awarded the QSA....which has save me time looking for it...!!