THE DESCENDANTS OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL FRANCIS SCRIMGER VC, CANADIAN ARMY MEDICAL CORPS, HAVE DONATED HIS VICTORIA CROSS AND CAMPAIGN MEDALS TO THE CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM IN OTTAWA.
17 October 2005


( select to enlarge )
Medal entitlement of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Scrimger,
Canadian Army Medical Corps

  • Victoria Cross
  • 1914-15 Star ( missing )
  • British War Medal ( 1914-20 )
  • Victory Medal ( 1914-19 )


The Canadian War Museum has accepted from his three daughters the Victoria Cross and campaign medals awarded to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Scrimger, the first Canadian medical officer to be awarded Britain's highest award for gallantry. Representatives of the Scrimger family and museum staff participated in a formal donation ceremony in the First World War gallery of the new museum.


For the award of the Victoria Cross

[ London Gazette, 23 June 1915 ], St Julien, Belgium, 25 April 1915, Captain Francis Alexander Carron Scrimger, Canadian Army Medical Corps, att'd 14th Bn, Royal Montreal Regiment, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

On the afternoon of 25th April 1915, in the neighbourhood of Ypres, when in charge of an advanced dressing station in some farm buildings, which were being heavily shelled by the enemy, he directed under heavy fire the removal of the wounded, and he himself carried a severely wounded officer out of a stable in seach of a place of greater safety. When he was unable alone to carry this officer further, he remained with him under fire till help could be obtained.

During the very heavy fighting between 22nd and 25th April, Captain Scrimger displayed continuously day and night the greatest devotion to his duty among the wounded at the front.

Francis Scrimger was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace on the 21st July 1915.


Francis Scrimger continued to serve at Canadian Army Hospitals until 1919, after which he returned home with his new wife, a nurse he had met overseas. Francis Scrimger died at his home in Montreal, aged 57, on 13th February 1937, and is buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery. A mountain near the Kootenays was named after him in 1918.

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Iain Stewart, 18 October 2005