A tribute to one of Courier Country’s forgotten heroes has gone on display at a Tayside museum.
Dr Thomas Finlayson Dewar was one of the area’s foremost medical practitioners at the start of the 20th century and he went on to also have a distinguished military career.
He served for 33 years as a combatant soldier and medical officer during the Boer War and the First World War.
A collection of seven medals which was awarded to him during his service is now on display at the Signal Tower Museum in his hometown of Arbroath.
It includes the rare Territorial Decoration medal, given for 20 years of military service, of which only 585 were made.
Mr Dewar was born in 1866 and educated at Arbroath High and the universities of Aberdeen as a doctor of medicine in 1887.
After working in Edinburgh, he was appointed medical officer for health in Monifieth, and then Forfar.
His military career started in South Africa from 1899 to 1902 where he was first a combatant in the Imperial Yeomanry, then a surgical captain. For this service he received the Queen’s medal.
After the war, he organised public health in Fife and Kinross and was appointed chief medical inspector in these counties. He then was a medical inspector for the Local Government Board of Scotland.
He also had spells as a councillor in Arbroath and as a member of the school board.
During the First World War he served in France and at home where his domestic responsibilities included the medical arrangements of East Anglia in the event of an attempted land invasion.
He was the Assistant Director of Medical Services for the 57th West Lancashire Division and served on the front line at the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele, the 2nd Battle of Arras and the Battles for the Hindenburg Line.
He was awarded the Companion of the Bath (Military Division) by the King and promoted to Colonel in Army Medical Service after the war.
The Signal Tower has a copy of the obituary which appeared in the British Medical Journal after his death in 1929, when he was aged 63.
A tribute from Dr CE Douglas from St Andrews states: “The Boer War arrived and Dewer was out in it as a trooper in the ranks and sharing in the wild excitements of the pursuit of De Wet.
“But medical men were too precious for this to be permitted and Dewar was soon in his rightful position as a medical officer, coming out of that affair with the Queen’s medal and four clasps.”
Mr Dewar also published several books, including On the Sanitations of Armies and the Natural History of Arbroath and District.
The display shows the seven medals he was awarded the Order of the Bath, the Freedom of the Burgh of Arbroath, the Queen’s South African Medal, the Mons Star, the British War medal, the Victory medal and the Territorial Decoration.
They will remain on display until December.