61155: Medals of Frank Miller Bingham

Frank Miller Bingham, MRCS, LRCP Born 17th September 1874, at Alfreton, the second son of Dr. Joseph Bingham, of Alfreton, Derbyshire. Educated at St. Peter's School, York, and St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School. Having qualified, he took charge for about four years of a large practice in Blackwell, Alfreton, Derbyshire, associated with the Blackwell Collieries, which had been, since the collieries were sunk, under the control of his father. Subsequently he lived at Brook House, Caton, near Lancaster, and was for five years in partnership with Dr. Scott at Hornby. From 1911 he was in partnership in Queen's Square, Lancaster, with Dr G. R. Parker and Dr C. W. Dean, as Parker, Dean and Bingham, living at Lindon Cottage (he was in practice at Caton and Lancaster for ten years). A good all-round sportsman, he played cricket for Derbyshire and rugby for Blackheath and Middlesex. An enthusiastic territorial, he preferred to serve as a combatant than as a military doctor: Lieutenant, 5th King's Own (Royal Lancashire Regiment) Territorial Battalion, November 1910; Captain, 1914; Company Commander, May 1914; acting second in command of his battalion, 1915. After the severe fighting around Ypres in Flanders in the first two weeks of May (Second Battle of Ypres), he received three days home leave and, on the day after his return to the front, was killed in action 22nd May 1915. He had been reconnoitring some new trenches that his battalion was to occupy the following day, and as he and other officers were leaving, before daybreak, they came across a man half buried by the side of a trench which had been blown in. He insisted on stopping to dig the man out himself, which took some time, and it was daylight before all had begun to leave the trenches. The party was seen by the Germans, and he received a bullet through the heart which killed him instantaneously. He was buried on the edge of a wood at the front, but his grave was subsequently lost in the fighting, and he is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. A bronze tablet was erected in his memory by the medical profession of Lancaster and district on the outer wall of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, unveiled 2nd December 1915 by Dr G. R. Parker, senior member of the medical profession in Lancaster.

Editor's Comment:
1914-15 Star, War and Victory Medals with ribbons.