Extreme Uniform

This is Mrs. Minnie Enness, Matron of two British Red Cross Hospitals in Alexandria between 1915 and 1919 and awarded the OBE for her war service. While I know nothing about Mrs. Enness's skills as a nurse, she certainly showed some pzazz in her choice of uniform. Definitely not a style approved by the Joint War Committee!

Ambulance Trains - Crossing London

I grew up in the London suburbs, just a couple of hundred yards from a railway station. It was an odd sort of station as which ever way you went - there were only two platforms - you ended up at Waterloo half an hour later - that's where the train stopped. If you wanted to go north, east or west you then crossed London by tube or bus and reached one of the other London terminus stations - Paddington, Liverpool Street, Kings Cross ... that was where all the trains started from, and of course stopped. It never occurred to me that it was, or had ever been possible to cross London by train, without stopping.  London was one big full stop.By 1988 I was living near Brighton, and the Thameslink line opened.  I thought it was a great innovation, the ability to go right through the heart of London without changing trains, though I admit to never having gone beyond Farringdon. It never occurred to me that the wheel hadn't just been discovered, only re-invented.

So when I started to get interested in ambulance trains, it puzzled me how these huge trains, longer than anything we see now, could get from Dover, going north, without making some long haul round the M25 of railway lines. I apologise if this sounds really naive and stupid but I grew up spending my life on trains, and believe me, they always stopped at Waterloo or Victoria. Since then I've learned a little bit about the mass of independent railway companies that owned track nationwide, and the tangle of different lines that criss-crossed London taking trains anywhere at all if the mood took them.  So, to get to the point.

During the Great War there were three main ways that an ambulance train could cross London on its way from Dover, depending on its stopping places and final destination. Briefly, they were:


The West route:  From Clapham Junction over the Thames at Battersea Railway Bridge (at that time called Cremorne Bridge), and then via Addison Road Station, now Kensington Olympia, and up via Willesden Junction and onwards north or westbound.

The Central route:  From Loughborough Junction in the south, across Blackfriars Bridge and then up through Farringdon, King’s Cross, and Snow Hill Tunnel - the current First Capital Connect (Thameslink) route.

The East route:  Up via New Cross and Surrey Docks in the south, crossing under the river via the Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping, then up the eastern side of Liverpool Street Station. The Thames Tunnel has had a long and chequered history, but today is used as part of tfl's London Overground services.

The Thames Tunnel in its original condition

So London has never been a full stop for trains, and even today you can travel long-distance north to south across London on at least two of the routes used during the Great War. The wheel is very old, and still going strong.

1899

Ambulance Trains - where did they actually go?

During the Great War many existing railway lines nationwide were taken over by the Government in an effort to make the best use of services for transport of goods, armaments, service personnel, civilian travellers and also for ambulance trains. The vast majority of casualties from abroad arrived in the United Kingdom at either Dover or Southampton and unless remaining in one of those two towns they were then transported onwards by train to all parts of the British mainland.

There were two hundred 'stopping stations' - railway stations that received  sick and wounded men and women for onward transfer to local hospitals by motor car or ambulance, and a list of these can be found in 'British Railways and the Great War.'*  In alphabetical order, and excluding Dover and Southampton themselves, they were:


Aberdeen; Addison Road (now Kensington Olympia); Aintree; Aldershot; Ampthill; Avonmouth; Axminster; Bangour; Basingstoke; Bath; Belmont; Bentley; Berrington; Berwick; Bexhill; Bickley; Birkenhead; Birmingham; Bletchley; Bournemouth; Boscombe; Bradford; Brentwood; Brighton; Bristol; Brockenhurst; Brocton; Bromley South; Brookwood; Bulford; Bury St. Edmunds

Cambridge; Cambuslang; Canterbury; Cardiff; Carlisle; Catford; Chatham; Chelmsford; Chelsea; Cheltenham; Chester; Chichester; Chislehurst; Christchurch; Clacton-on-Sea; Clandon; Clapham Junction; Colchester; Cosham; Court Sart; Coventry; Crewe; Cromer

Deal; Derby; Devizes; Devonport; Dewsbury; Dorchester; Dundee; Durham; Eastbourne; East Croydon; Eastleigh; Edmonton; Edinburgh; Egham; Epsom; Exeter; Farnborough; Faversham; Fawkham; Fovant Railhead; Fratton

Gillingham [Dorset]; Glasgow; Gloucester; Gosforth; Gosport; Grantham; Gravesend; Greenock; Greenwich; Guildford; Halesworth; Halifax; Hamworthy Junction; Harlow; Harrogate; Haywards Heath; Hereford; Herne Bay; High Barnet; Holmwood; Huddersfield

Ingham; Ingress Park Siding; Ipswich; Keighley; Kendal; Lancaster; Leeds; Leen Valley; Leicester; Leigh; Lichfield; Lincoln; Liphook; Liverpool; Lyme Regis; Lyminge; London Charing Cross; London Paddington; London Victoria; London Waterloo

Maidstone; Malmesbury; Manchester; Margate Sands; Mayfield; Minster Junction; Napsbury; Neath; Netley; New Barnet; Newbury Park; Newcastle-on-Tyne; Newcastle-under-Lyme; Newmarket; Newport; Newton Abbott; Northampton; Norwich Thorpe; Nottingham; Orpington; Oswestry; Oxford

Paignton; Paisley; Penrith; Perth; Plymouth; Poole; Portsmouth; Preston; Ramsgate; Reading; Rubery; Saffron Walden; Salisbury; Selly Oak; Sheffield; Sherbourne (sic); Shorncliffe; Shrewsbury; Sidcup; Sidmouth; Sittingbourne; Snaresbrook; Southall; Southend; Southport; Stafford; Stoke-on-Trent; Stourbridge; Stratford; Stratford-on-Avon; Strathpeffer; Sunderland

 Taplow; Templecombe; Tidworth; Tonbridge; Torquay; Torre; Walmer; Waltham Cross; Walton-on-Thames; Warminster; Warrington Arpley; Well Hall; West Croydon; West Gosforth; West Marina; Weymouth; Whalley; Whitchurch; Willesden; Wimborne; Winchester; Windemere; Windsor; Witley; Wrexham; York

Strathpeffer Station

The farthest north of these was Strathpeffer, a distance of approximately 625 miles away, and an estimated journey time (with a fair wind and bit of luck) of 20 hours and 33 minutes.  Thank goodness that Richard Beeching was only one year old when the Great War started and many years away from wielding his axe.

The Wounded at Dover by Sir John Lavery (Imperial War Museum)

***

*British Railways and the Great War, Edwin A. Pratt (Two volumes); Selwyn and Blount, 1921; now freely available online.

Versailles - The British Hospital, 1914

Following the events of the Boer War where hundreds of wealthy female 'camp followers' invaded British hospitals in attempt to claim some involvement in nursing the sick and wounded, the War Office made every effort to ensure that in any future war strict controls would ensure that only authorised and approved workers were allowed to be employed in British hospitals. I've recently acquired a copy of a book written by Maud Sutton-Pickhard, who seems to have followed in the footsteps of her South African sisters in gaining admittance to places that she should not really have been.  Her sheer nerve and arrogance are a sign that life, particularly for the rich, was rather different a hundred years ago.  Having been refused a job by the American Ambulance in Neuilly on account of her lack of qualifications or experience, she wanders around Paris seeing the sights, and one morning took the train to Versailles 'to see the big English hospital there.' As there are so few accounts of the hospital I guess she should be thanked for writing about her experience.


At Versailles I had an omelette at the little station inn called the " Lion d'Or," and then I went to a tabac  and bought all the French cigarettes I could find as there were no English ones, and some tobacco and cigarette papers. (Horrid cigarettes they are too ! — but the "Tommies" seemed pleased to get them, as smoking is their one solace.)

Walking up the fine avenue called the Boulevard de la Reine, with its noble trees, I came to the magnificent hospital, formerly the Trianon Palace Hotel. It is a truly ideal spot for a hospital, and it is a marvel of English efficiency and organization. I was one living exclamation point of admiration from the moment I entered the gate until I left. The grounds were filled with convalescents in khaki, all looking happy and cheerful. I passed them and went to the front door, where a Red Cross soldier asked me very politely whom I wished to see. I had been asked the same question in the grounds. I said I wished to look over the hospital; so he called the Colonel. The latter was exceedingly courteous, but it was obvious that he was somewhat puzzled at my unexpected arrival. (I seemed to be the only visitor except one old French Sister with a basket of food.) He asked me if I knew any of the officers, if I knew anyone in the hospital. I said I was awfully sorry, but I didn't — that I had just heard about the hospital, and had come up to look it over and take some Kodak pictures.

He said, "You want to take Kodak pictures of the wounded?"
"Of the hospital and grounds — of the whole thing in fact," I replied.
"What do you want to do with the pictures?"
“Oh, send them to my friends to show what a nice place the wounded have over here."

He seemed satisfied, and said, “It is rather unusual, but you don't look like a German spy! "I laughed and got out my passports for him. He examined them, but he still seemed a trifle puzzled. Finally he said he would show me round, and he told me there was going to be a funeral that afternoon, and asked me if I wanted to go to it. We met the old French woman in the hall, and he asked if I knew what she wanted.
I said, "Why, don't you speak French?"
He said, "Not a word."

The interpreter had come forward, but I found out that she just wanted to give the things in her basket to the soldiers in the garden, only she wanted to distribute the stuff herself, and it was against the regulations. The Colonel looked in her basket, and told me to tell her that she could do so to those out of doors but not to those in the wards. Then he shook hands with her, and we wandered through the ground floor ward, while I distributed the cigarettes among the Tommies. The Colonel stopped to give some directions about a wounded man, so I said I would go on upstairs. He told me to knock at any door before I went in, but I preferred to get hold of a Sister, and she took me in to see an officer in the Worcestershire Regiment. I offered my own private cigarettes to the young man, who was evidently pleased to see visitors. The poor boy had been shot in both arms and one leg.  His right arm was paralyzed. But, in spite of this, he was most anxious to get well and return to the Front. I started to go, and he said, " Oh, don't go yet ! " I replied that I feared conversation would tire him, but he said that on the contrary it took his mind off himself. So I sat down on an adjoining bed while he told me the history of his battles and wounds. It was quite thrilling, yet so simply told, with only the barest necessary mention of himself — all about his men, and the Germans and the fighting. He had crossed a branch of the Aisne, by wading, in order to take a farmhouse on the opposite bank ; there he found he was trapped, with the Germans at his back, behind some trees. He had taken sixteen prisoners, but they had surrendered only in order to lead him into a deadlier place in which he was ambuscaded. There was no way out but to hurry back through the fire. He had been the first to cross, so he was the first to discover the trap, and hastily called to his men to get back as quickly as they could. Though wounded in both arms, he managed to get away, but was again hit in the leg at the last moment. He was helped out of danger by some of his men, but it was hours before he could see a doctor. He had to lie on straw and freeze until he could get medical assistance, and finally be moved to a hospital. He told me a lot about the Germans. They are very tricky, but the men only obey orders. One German prisoner told him that he did not know he had been fighting the English!

Fearing to fatigue him by letting him talk too much, I went upstairs and gave the Tommies on the top floor the rest of my cigarettes, helping them to light them, and trying to say some words of comfort. They seemed so pleased to have someone to talk to, and so grateful for the wretched cigarettes. Some had just arrived from the trenches, and they looked most horribly weak and ill. But all of them were so brave and patient and cheerful, although they brought tears to one's eyes when they said how glad they would be to see wife and children again.

I went over the grounds and inspected the tents, which are ideally clean and well arranged. The entire place struck me as the perfection of efficiency and comfort. Before I left I had an opportunity of seeing the funeral. It was a most imposing and solemn sight. When the hearses were drawn up in front of the gates everybody stood, the convalescents, who were sitting on chairs in the sunshine and under the lofty trees, rose and leant against their seats, or else they were helped up and supported by their comrades. There were six men buried, all English soldiers. Hundreds of French people crowded outside the gates, and the great majority of them followed the funeral to the cemetery as a tribute of respect to their brave Allies.

France in Wartime 1914-1915: Maud Sutton-Pickhard: Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1915
(and freely available on the web)

A moment's self-indulgence

At present I'm transcribing and indexing the British Red Cross Register of Overseas Volunteers, published in 1918, and have completed 9,000 entries out of an estimated total of 18-20,000.  I really enjoy the discipline of data entry to a background of the radio - Radio 2, Classic FM or 'Gold' usually, as too much of the spoken word ruins concentration. Along the way I reflect on some of the surnames that pass me by, often attached to famous individuals who worked voluntarily in some capacity during the Great War. More frequently they are simply unusual names that I associate with today's celebrities and sportsmen, and nostalgia wafts across the room as I remember I  people I knew as a child - relatives, neighbours, school-friends - so many of them cross my mind. I wonder if VAD Mary Jane Tennant was any sort of ancestor of Dr. Who, or whether one of several Starkeys had a famous historian in the family decades later? Did chauffeuse Lena Clunes have any connection with Doc Martin, and where did the numerous Cadburys and Rowntrees fit into family trees? Probably all red herrings.

Today I entered the details of a chauffeur, Percy Tabrum.  Such an unusual surname, and it also belonged to one of the nurses who was in my group when I first joined the army and went for initial training at Royal Pavilion, Aldershot, Joy Tabrum. I remember Joy well, and decided to do a web search.  There were few results, but prominent was a page of the London Gazette, dated 8th May 1973 - MY page. It lists all of us who had just completed our training period and were fully-fledged officers in Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. Some of the women I remember well, some I have no recollection of whatsoever.  I was good friends with Joy and also Lynne Sullivan, though we went different ways after we left Royal Pavilion. I seem to remember that Florence Brown was a Scot, and I later worked with Jean Crowson and Iris Weare at the British Military Hospital, Iserlohn. Astonishing to realise that forty years have passed since that page was published, and we were all still excited about floating around in grey and scarlet.  I really wonder where they all are now, and what life has dealt them?

Lest We Forget ... the women among us

Over the next few years there's likely to be much publicity given to the men and women who died during the course of the Great War. VADs - the army of untrained nurses who supported the military medical services at that time, and without whose contribution those same services may well have collapsed, have always been rather hard done by when it comes to official recognition.  As civilians, they are not eligible for commemoration by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission unless they died while on active service abroad, or later in the UK of illness contracted abroad. So most* VADs who died 'at home,' have remained a forgotten band, officially at least.

In 1918 the Imperial War Museum was busy collecting material to represent women's work during the war and to acknowledge the important contribution they had made. One aspect of this was to approach the next of kin of women who had died on war service to obtain portrait photographs which would eventually form part of a Roll of Honour. Agnes Conway headed the Women at Work Committee at the Museum, where her father, Sir Martin Conway, was Director-General, and she had overall responsibility for the task. I recently came across some interesting correspondence between her and Lady Ampthill, at that time Chairman of the Joint Women's V.A.D. Committee, which shows that even then the deaths of VADs were strictly divided in some quarters between those considered worthy of commemoration, and those who didn't quite make the grade. It shows the dividing line that exists today had its roots in thought and deed even before the war had ended.

* There are many anomalies in the commemoration of women and always a few who don't seem to fit in with the criteria

--------------------------

Agnes Conway to Lady Ampthill, 6th November 1918

Dear Lady Ampthill,

I have received a list of 20 names of members of Voluntary Aid Detachments who have died on service during October.  It occurs to me that some of these members may have died of influenza. Do you think it is advisable to collect photographs for the War Museum of V.A.D. members who have been the victims of an epidemic that has carried off so many of the general public?  I think that when we ask the next of kin for photographs we ought to confine ourselves to members who have really given up their lives on direct war service.  If you agree, have you any means of eliminating the names of those who have died of ordinary illness from your lists before I receive them?

Lady Ampthill to Agnes Conway, 8th November 1918

Dear Miss Conway

Thank you very much for your letter of the 6th inst.  All those members whose deaths have been announced to you, died of Influenza, and Pneumonia whilst actually nursing in hospitals.  I think, therefore, as they died actually at work, we cannot make any difference between them and others.  Do you not think so?  They probably got Influenza whilst in performance of their duty, and it would seem very difficult to differentiate.

Agnes Conway to Lady Ampthill, 12th November 1918

Dear Lady Ampthill

If you think it best not to distinguish between nurses who have died from Influenza and others we will go on just as we have been doing, and I will write to all the next of kin for their photographs.  When the time comes to compile a permanent Roll of Honour, I think we ought to make some distinction between those who were bombed, torpedoed, etc., and those who died of actual illness, but there is, of course, no hurry at the moment.

Leaving France

Several years ago now I transcribed the official war diary of Maud McCarthy, Matron-in-Chief with the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders during the Great War. She arrived in France on the 15th August 1914, and except for a break after suffering a serious illness, she worked continuously and tirelessly until her final return on the 5th August 1919. She spent five years of non-stop work with barely a day off and only the briefest periods of leave, running the military nursing services with precision, inspecting hospitals and casualty clearing stations, and leaving her mark on everything and everybody she came into contact with.  She was not a young woman, fifty-five when the war started, but her energy and charisma were remarkable. I typed my way through Miss McCarthy's war - four thousand pages of it - and began to understand just a little of the difficulties she faced as the war grew and she struggled for staff, and order, and perfection - nothing less was good enough for the sick and injured. When I reached her final day in France I found it almost impossibly emotional. The account, written by her successor, Mildred Bond, paints the most vivid picture how much respect and love she commanded. While going through some photos I found a series of grainy snaps taken by a nurse that day.  They are of poor quality, indistinct, and faded, but along with Miss Bond's words, go some way to describing the feelings on the quayside at Boulogne on the 5th August, 1919.


05.08.19
Departure of Matron-in-Chief, France
On August 5th the Matron-in-Chief, BEF left France, from which date I took over the duties of Principal Matron of France and Flanders. On the evening of the fourth, Dame Maud McCarthy GBE, RRC, dined with the DMS General Gerrard CB, and the officers of his staff, who were giving a farewell dinner in her honour.  The following guest were present:  Colonel Barefoot DDMS, L of C, Colonel Statham the DDMS Boulogne and Etaples, Colonel Gordon the ADMS Calais, and also the A/Principal Matrons of the Areas, Miss L. E. Mackay QAIMNS, Miss Allen QAIMNS and Miss Rowe QAIMNS; also Miss Congleton QAIMNS, Matron 32 Stationary Hospital; Miss G. Wilton Smith and myself.  In the centre of the dinner table was placed a gorgeous basket of choice hot-house flowers which was afterwards presented to Dame Maud, and the DMS made a very appropriate and gratifying speech in which he expressed so much appreciation of her noble work and character and regrets at her leaving France, in which we all concurred so heartily.

On the afternoon of the 5th, Dame Maud left by the afternoon boat for England.  I went with the DMS in his car to see her off, and Miss G. Wilton Smith and Miss Barbier CHR went with her in her own car.  There was a large crowd waiting on the Quay when she arrived.  Among those present were a  Representative from GOC, General Asser being absent from Boulogne; the DMS and his staff; Brigadier General Wilberforce CB CMG the Base Commandant; Colonel Barefoot DDMS L of C; Colonel Statham DDMS Boulogne and Etaples; Colonel Gordon the ADMS Calais; and many other officers; Major Liouville, who represented the French Medical Service and Monsieur M. Rigaud, Secretary to the Sous-Prefecture who represented the French civil population, came in place of Monsieur M. Buloz who was absent from Boulogne.  These two men thanked her on behalf of the Military and Civil Authorities for all the goodness and courtesy they had always received at her hands.  The Matrons and the Nursing Staff from all the near Units who could be spared from duty and who were anxious to show a last mark of respect to their retiring chief were present.
She shook hands with everyone and was wonderful to the last, in the way she carried through a most difficult and trying farewell.  Her cabin was a perfect bower of most beautiful flowers sent from the staff of the different Hospitals.  One of her own staff, Miss Hill VAD, was able to cross with her as she was going home on demobilisation.  As the ship moved off the Matron-in-Chief, Miss Hill and Major Tate RAMC of the DMS staff, who was proceeding to England on transfer, escorted Dame Maud to the bridge and remained with her.  They all waved from the bridge and we all waved and cheered our loudest and sang “For she’s a jolly good fellow” as the ship sailed out of the harbour.  I think we shall never forget that sight and shall always like to remember the courageous and plucky way in which our chief carried our flag flying to the very last moment into her civilian life, where we wish her all happiness and success and where she will still command the love and respect of us all.

*****

The war diary is held at The National Archives, ref: WO95/3988-3991 and the transcription can be found here: Official War Diary of the Matron-in-Chief with the B.E.F. in France and Flanders