This Intrepid Band

A fun place for women in wartime?

2012-01-23T15:13:00.005Z

This looks quite a good place for a woman to hang out in wartime if she had any intentions of finding a husband. These two images show the British Army and Navy Club, Paris, which was housed in the Hotel Moderne, Place de la Republique. The first is a postcard of the main staircase, which looks a bit like a 1918 venue for speed-dating, and the second a fine art reproduction of the same place by Josephe-Félix Bouchor.

The Old School

2012-01-21T11:05:00.005Z

Nothing to do with military nurses, but I thought rather interesting. I bought a copy of this image recently, originally published as an appendix to 'The Medical History of the Meath Hospital' in 1892. It shows four members of the nursing staff of Meath Hospital, Dublin, in 1872, and is an outstanding example of a reputable group of nurses of that time. I use the word 'reputable' as many nurses were known to be drunken, illiterate and untrustworthy, often incapable of earning a living elsewhere. Meath Hospital was Ireland's most firmly established civil hospital, being founded in 1753, and I think it has to be assumed that these four were chosen to represent the best of its staff in 1872. With the organised training of nurses in its infancy at that time, there were enormous changes over the next twenty years, which meant similar group of the 1890s looked very different indeed.

It's often extremely difficult to stretch our minds away from the crisp, uniformed nurses that have been familiar in our hospitals since the beginning of the twentieth century. Luckily, the survival of images such as these are a reminder that hospital life wasn't always so! The four women are named, from left to right as:

Fever nurse Hodgens
Night nurse Spring
Surgical nurse Murray
Accident nurse Brazil

A toast to the old school, fading fast.

Something to be learnt ...

2011-12-31T14:33:00.004Z

My fingers need to be typing ... preferably lists. Lists of anything really. I thought lists might become boring after a while, but with the radio on and my brain detached, typing lists is really very relaxing. After toying with a few medal roll bits and pieces, I've decided to transcribe some medal rolls in full. I discovered that quite a few of the medal rolls at The National Archives cover 'miscellaneous' medical units, which seem to be useful as they not only give full names, but also state which unit a person was attached - information not easily found elsewhere. So I've started with the British Red Cross Society 1914 Star roll (WO329/2505), and it's proving rather interesting. I've already typed my way through W. Somerset Maugham working as a volunteer driver, artist C. R. Nevinson slogging away (I hope) with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, and a few of the great and the good such as Fabian Ware and Lord Robert Cecil.

I've now reached a part of the roll devoted to the rank and file British Red Cross orderlies who went to France between August and November 1914. As a few of them have rather unusual names, it's been possible to check their occupations with the help of the 1911 census. Rather surprisingly (to me, anyway) most of those I've been able to find so far were pre-war coal miners from County Durham, or from Wales, and it seems likely that they were recruited as a group early on in the war. I wonder who initiated 'coal miners as hospital orderlies' and why the men found it so appealing at the time? But it proves that however boring lists might seem, there's always something to be learnt ...

United States Army Nurse Corps

2011-12-27T11:54:00.002Z

It's hard to find sources which outline the involvement of American nurses in the Great War. A few served with the British Expeditionary Force in France from as early as 1915, but the majority arrived with the entrance of the US into the war in 1917, and worked with the American forces in areas outside of those controlled by the British. Recently a friend came across a brief history of the US Army Nurse Corps and bought it for me (thanks Harry!). Below is an extract which describes the activities of American nurses during WW1. It surprises me that considering the short period that the US were involved overseas, and the small numbers of both troops and casualties, relative to the other Allied nations, that there was such a high number of American trained nurses taking part in some capacity or another. I can only wonder at how so many women were kept fully employed.

***

30 June 1918
Of the 12,186 nurses on active duty, 5,350 were serving overseas

9 July 1918
The Nurse Corps (female) was redesignated the Army Nurse Corps by the Army Reorganization Act of 1918. The 1918 Act restricted appointments to women nurses. Base pay was increased to $60 per month.

11 November 1918
Armistice Day. During World War 1, the peak strength of the Army Nurse Corps reached 21,480 on 11 November 1918. More than ten thousand nurses had served in overseas areas in France, Belgium, England, Italy, and Serbia, as well as in Siberia, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Included were ten Sisters of Charity who served with Base Hospital No.102 in Vicenza, Italy. Army nurses were assigned to casualty clearing stations and surgical teams in field hospitals as well as to mobile, evacuation, base, camp and convalescent hospitals. They also served on hospital trains and transport ships. Following the Armistice, nurses served with the occupation forces in German until the American forces were returned in 1923.

Several nurses were wounded, but none died as a result of enemy action. There were, however, more than two hundred deaths largely caused by influenza and pneumonia. The Distinguished Service Cross (second in rank only to the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration in combat) was awarded to 3 Army nurses. The Distinguished Service Medal (highest decoration in noncombat) was awarded to 23 Army nurses. In addition to other United States Army decorations, 28 Army nurses were awarded the French Croix de Guerre, 69 the British Royal Red Cross, and 2 the British Military Medal. Many Army nurses were named in British Army dispatches for their meritorious service.

Nurses who remained in the United States served with distinction in busy cantonment and general hospitals, at ports of embarkation, and at other military outposts. Many were cited for meritorious service.

Highlights in the History of the Army Nurse Corps
Edited by Carolyn M. Feller and Constance J. Moore
U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995

Mrs. Seacole at Christmas

2011-12-25T12:36:00.004Z

Excuse this for being rather out of period for this blog, but as it's the season of festive cheer (hopefully) I thought that a look back to Christmas towards the end of the Crimean War might be in order. This extract comes from Mary Seacole's memoirs 'The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands' published in 1857.

***

So Christmas came, and with it pleasant memories of home and of home comforts. With it came also news of home—some not of the most pleasant description—and kind wishes from absent friends. “A merry Christmas to you,” writes one, “and many of them. Although you will not write to us, we see your name frequently in the newspapers, from which we judge that you are strong and hearty. All your old Jamaica friends are delighted to hear of you, and say that you are an honour to the Isle of Springs.”

I wonder if the people of other countries are as fond of carrying with them everywhere their home habits as the English. I think not. I think there was something purely and essentially English in the determination of the camp to spend the Christmas-day of 1855 after the good old “home” fashion. It showed itself weeks before the eventful day. In the dinner parties which were got up—in the orders sent to England—in the supplies which came out, and in the many applications made to the hostess of the British Hotel for plum-puddings and mince-pies. The demand for them, and the material necessary to manufacture them, was marvellous. I can fancy that if returns could be got at of the flour, plums, currants, and eggs consumed on Christmas-day in the out-of-the-way Crimean peninsula, they would astonish us. One determination appeared to have taken possession of every mind—to spend the festive day with the mirth and jollity which the changed prospect of affairs warranted; and the recollection of a year ago, when death and misery were the camp’s chief guests, only served to heighten this resolve.

For three weeks previous to Christmas-day, my time was fully occupied in making preparations for it. Pages of my books are filled with orders for plum-puddings and mince-pies, besides which I sold an immense quantity of raw material to those who were too far off to send down for the manufactured article on Christmas-day, and to such purchasers I gave a plain recipe for their guidance. Will the reader take any interest in my Crimean Christmas-pudding? It was plain, but decidedly good. However, you shall judge for yourself:—“One pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of raisins, three-quarters of a pound of fat pork, chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of sugar, a little cinnamon or chopped lemon, half-pint of milk or water; mix these well together, and boil four hours.”

From an early hour in the morning until long after the night had set in, were I and my cooks busy endeavouring to supply the great demand for Christmas fare. We had considerable difficulty in keeping our engagements, but by substituting mince-pies for plum-puddings, in a few cases, we succeeded. The scene in the crowded store, and even in the little over-heated kitchen, with the officers’ servants, who came in for their masters’ dinners, cannot well be described. Some were impatient themselves, others dreaded their masters’ impatience as the appointed dinner hour passed by—all combined by entreaties, threats, cajolery, and fun to drive me distracted. Angry cries for the major’s plum-pudding, which was to have been ready an hour ago, alternated with an entreaty that I should cook the captain’s mince-pies to a turn—“Sure, he likes them well done, ma’am. Bake ’em as brown as your own purty face, darlint.”

I did not get my dinner until eight o’clock, and then I dined in peace off a fine wild turkey or bustard, shot for me on the marshes by the Tchernaya. It weighed twenty-two pounds, and, although somewhat coarse in colour, had a capital flavour.

Upon New Year’s-day I had another large cooking of plum-puddings and mince-pies; this time upon my own account. I took them to the hospital of the Land Transport Corps, to remind the patients of the home comforts they longed so much for. It was a sad sight to see the once fine fellows, in their blue gowns, lying quiet and still, and reduced to such a level of weakness and helplessness. They all seemed glad for the little home tokens I took them.

There was one patient who had been a most industrious and honest fellow, and who did not go into the hospital until long and wearing illness compelled him. I was particularly anxious to look after him, but I found him very weak and ill. I stayed with him until evening, and before I left him, kind fancy had brought to his bedside his wife and children from his village-home in England, and I could hear him talking to them in a low and joyful tone. Poor, poor fellow! the New Year so full of hope and happiness had dawned upon him, but he did not live to see the wild flowers spring up peacefully through the war-trodden sod before Sebastopol.

The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

VAD post-war scholarships

2011-12-18T11:46:00.003Z

In order to show appreciation of the work done by members of Voluntary Aid Detachments during the War, soon after the Armistice the Central Joint V.A.D. Committee founded a number of scholarships designed to 'meet the needs of Red Cross peace work'. They offered funding to enable VADs to undertake training in the following areas:

Medicine; Nursing; District Nursing; Village Nursing; Midwifery; School Nursing; Nursery Nursing; School Matron; Physical Culture; Instructors of the Mentally Defective; Pharmacy; X-Ray Assistant; Dentistry; Domestic Science; Institutional Cookery; Sanitary Inspector; Health Visiting; Welfare Supervision; Hospital Almoner; Infant Welfare.

The number of scholarships finally awarded was 557, as follows:

Medicine - 13
Welfare Supervisor - 15
Physical Culture - 6
Domestic Science - 14
X-Ray Assistant - 9
Massage - 32
Hospital Almoner - 9
Health Visitor - 35
Pharmacy - 29
School Matron - 51
Infant Welfare - 7
Nursery Nurse - 26
Village Nurse - 9
Institutional Cookery - 36
Midwifery - 134
Nursing - 129
Dental Mechanics - 3

Source: Reports by the Joint War Committee and the Joint War Finance Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England on Voluntary Aid Rendered to the Sick and Wounded at Home and Abroad and to British Prisoners of War, 1914-1919 (HMSO, 1921)

Always the bridesmaid ... ?

2011-12-11T09:43:00.006Z

Following my frequent bouts of insanity after watching the last series of 'Downton Abbey,' someone suggested that I should watch the fourth series of 'Upstairs, Downstairs' which was set in the Great War, and, apparently, much more detailed and accurate. The thirteen-part series, screened in 1974, followed the trials and tribulations of the Bellamy family and their servants through the entire war. I was a great fan of the series, but as I was in Germany during that period (hatted, caped and 'doing the practical') it passed me by un-noticed.

A thirteen part series is much longer than we're used to today, so it was certainly possible to portray many aspects of the war which need to be omitted in a shorter series. In fact, every possible scenario of the Great War was there - tearful farewells, blood-stained returns, conscription, shell-shock, desertion and courts-martial, rationing, Zeppelin raids, the Silvertown munitions explosion, continuing London gaiety - in fact the episode titles alone spell out the war with 'The Beastly Hun,' 'The Glorious Dead,' 'Missing Believed Killed' and 'Facing Fearful Odds' among them.

And of course, then there were the 'gels.' Those well-heeled and aristocratic young women who 'did their bit' as VADs. I really wish I could watch scenes of hospital life during the war without hiding behind the sofa or taking a couple of aspirin. I really do. But I can't. Some of the portrayals in 'Upstairs, Downstairs' were good - the sensible, the scatterbrained, the soft-hearted - and I particularly liked the VAD who must have been a first cousin of Enid Blyton's 'George' of the Famous Five, frightfully practical at work and most adept at climbing over the hospital gates after hours. However, the usual problems and inaccuracies with dramatising Great War hospital life were already well ingrained in TV history.

Having been instructed by a lady on the tea-stall at a London station (quite correctly) to 'go to VAD Headquarters, Devonshire House, Piccadilly,' to join up, Miss Georgina (no relation to the aforementioned 'George') was, within a day or so, in charge of a ward at Guy's Hospital, and within a week (or so) supervising two more VADs who together seemed to make up the entire staff there except for a rather bad-tempered Irish nurse. Then, in the blink of an eye, Matron (who must now be turning in her grave*) interviewed Miss Georgina, suggesting that she would do very well in a 'field hospital' in France. Whether this was to advance her experience, or get rid of her was not made clear, but another blink and 'George' (I think she now deserves that accolade) was busy at a Casualty Clearing Station housed in a chateau somewhere in Northern France. Of course, as anyone who has spent time reading this blog will know (and I don't really expect anyone to put their hand up at this point) VADs never, ever worked in Casualty Clearing Stations in France - their service was confined exclusively to the base hospitals.

But my real problem is why it's always necessary to have them there? Why can't one of the characters be a 'proper' nurse in her rightful place? Why do the media have so much respect for the untrained VAD that they have to elevate her to the sainthood? VADs did a wonderful job and the medical services couldn't have survived without them, but why not give them their rightful place in history - show them for what they actually did and not just for what fits in to a modern storyline. The nurses who staffed Casualty Clearing Stations were trained nurses. They had all slogged their way through three years of training of the most onerous kind, and many had followed that with years of experience. They were the heart of the military nursing services - its backbone - and they are now relegated to bit parts in film and TV. They float by in the background, noticeable only for their severity, and occasionally barking out a word to one of our heroine VADs but otherwise invisible. Why does the trained nurse in wartime always have to be the bridesmaid and never the bride?

*The real-life Matron at that time was Miss Louisa Victoria Haughton, who retired in 1917 on the grounds of ill-health, but lived a long and productive life until her death in 1954, aged 86 years

Princess Marie de Croy

2011-12-04T14:10:00.004Z

While I was at The National Archives yesterday, I looked at the file of Princess Marie de Croy (1875-1968), which concerned the award of honours/decorations to her and her brother Prince Reginald de Croy for their work caring for British soldiers at their home, Chateau Bellignies, near Mons, in the autumn of 1914. I've put copies of a letter in her file below which outlines their activities. There must have been many more French and Belgian nationals who put their own lives at risk on behalf of the British. Luckily, Princess Marie wrote her memoirs, 'War Memories', and the book can be found on the web as a free download:

War Memories

Political Incorrectness

2011-11-07T12:25:00.002Z

Our perception of 'correctness' and 'incorrectness' today is certainly at odds with society a hundred years ago (which we all know very well!). Another entry in the Royal Red Cross Register to a Sister Cecilia, a religious nursing sister attached to the Italian Mission in East Africa states:

For continuous good work. The entire effacement of self on the part of this lady, which enables her to nurse in all stages of tropical sickness the almost primitive savages of the Carrier Corps is beyond all praise

And what a pity that these religious sisters who did so much good work during the Great War, and whose birth names remain unknown, will probably never be recognised by current day members of their families.

Oh Happy Day

2011-11-06T14:32:00.002Z

I've just found an entry in the Royal Red Cross Register for Helen Darge, a Staff Nurse with the Territorial Force Nursing Service whose award was dated 3rd June 1916. Presumably she was serving overseas, as she waited nearly four years to have the great honour of receiving her RRC from His Majesty The King at Buckingham Palace on 20th February 1920. However, she lost her precious medal on the very day of the Investiture, and then had to apply for permission to replace it at her own expense. I wonder what happened to the lost one, and if it has a place in anyone's collection today?

WO399 nurses' service records

2011-11-04T18:13:00.002Z

The National Archives have today added the WO399 class of records to DocumentsOnline. The series comprises almost 16,000 service records of members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, the Reserve and the Territorial Force Nursing Service who served during the Great War. And it looks as though a pretty thorough job has been made of producing them for the online service. Over the years I've looked at many hundreds of these files in an effort to pick up all the tiny pieces of the organisation and administration of the military nursing services, and will be sad that it's no longer possible to actually handle the original paperwork. But that's progress I guess, and it will be a big boon for researchers and family members worldwide to have such easy access to these records.

About 22,000 nurses served as trained military nurses, so many of these women are missing from the series of files. Quite a few went on to serve during the Second World War, and their files are still held by the Ministry of Defence, and records of women who had died, or were over age for further service at the time of the 1930s weeding process were destroyed. But still a very good chance that records exist either in these WO399 files, or at MOD, for any individual woman. I'll find it strange not to order original files next time I'm at TNA, but certainly won't miss the long wait for delivery as they were trundled from their far-flung corner. Now, a couple of clicks and I'll be away.

Military Nurses - searchable databases

2011-11-02T19:37:00.002Z

Some of my databases have been published today on FindMyPast. They include members of the 'regular' branch of QAIMNS, 1902-1926, the Army Nursing Service, and members of the Scottish Women's Hospital who served during the Great War. Although there's a small amount of money to be made by doing this (a very small amount), money has been no motivation at all in deciding to go down this path. I've spent a lot of time researching nurses over the past few years, and have enjoyed every minute. But acquiring information that few others have access to seems a bit pointless to me unless it can be shared, and as I'm not very 'web-techy' this is a great way to make my research generally available. What I see as rather pointless is spending years on research and then shutting it away from the rest of the world in a cupboard (which for some reason is a very popular thing for people to do). Although it costs money to view the records, at least that seems rather better to me than no-one ever being able to see them at all. And as in the past, I'm still more than willing to help people out with their nurse research in any way I can, from any of the sources I hold.

Military Nurses on FindMyPast

Thanks to Paul Nixon and Stephen Rigden for their help in getting this up and running

My Wish

2011-10-10T13:13:00.002+01:00

Is it time for New Year Resolutions yet? Never mind. May I offer up a prayer that at some future time there will be more awareness about military nurses. There seems to be a common misconception that their story starts and ends with Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell and Vera Brittain, none of whom were military nurses of course. Those three have a lot to answer for!

Military Hospitals 1899-1903

2011-10-09T12:38:00.004+01:00

As two of my favourite things are lists and typing, typing lists can be counted on to soothe my troubles away (yes, I know it's sad, sad, sad). So to suddenly find another long-forgotten list hidden away on my hard drive was a real bonus. The result is a page listing all British military hospitals in 1899 here:

British Military Hospitals, Worldwide, 1899

And an accompanying page with transcribed reports of some of the UKs military hospitals in 1902-3, on the eve of the reorganisation of the army medical services:

Military Hospital Reports 1902-1903

These few reports highlight how truly awful conditions were in some of the institutions, and show how far we've moved on in the last hundred years. Third Station Hospital, Aldershot, is damned by its report:

To adequately describe the glaring defects of this institution would be mere waste of time. Its immediate evacuation and demolition is the only possible way of dealing with an institution to which the name hospital should not be applied ...
... The sooner the place is struck off the List of Military Hospitals the better for the Service and for the Army, for nothing could be better calculated to crush the energy out of any Officer, to make the non-commissioned officers and men of the corps content with a low level of attainment, and to put dread of the word ‘hospital’ into the heart of any patient.

And Burnley soldiers had only this to look forward to if sick:

This hospital had been closed about a week before our visit. It was in a most deplorable condition of filth and neglect, and was quite unfit for habitation. The non-commissioned officer in charge was, at the time of our visit, under arrest, and the equipment was removed. If this hospital is ever to be reopened, much will require to be done to make it suitable for sick soldiers. In fact the whole barracks presented a picture of the most abject squalor, and the sight of them must have a strongly deterrent effect upon any man in Burnley who might think of enlisting. They were really disgraceful.

At this distance in time it seems almost amusing, but it's worth reflecting on how life has changed and what improvements we enjoy today.

Downton Abbey - More Tales of the Unexpected

2011-10-03T15:48:00.007+01:00

Julian Fellowes was rather upset last year about criticisms pointing out inaccuracies in the first series of Downton Abbey:

"There was also an assumption in the media that the complainant was automatically correct and we were wrong, which was frustrating... When there was a television aerial in shot, as there was once, I was happy to hold my hands up. But I expended a lot of energy getting agitated about accusations that such-and-such piece of music wasn't released until 1922, when in fact it was being played in 1910. Or the butler should have been in uniform when they came out of uniform in the Regency period - I mean, just shut up!"
Fellowes added: "This year I think it might be nice to have a column called 'This Week's Downton Blunders', where I have the right of reply and can say either, 'It's a fair cop' or, 'No, we got it right, they did wear bathing costumes in 1761' or whatever. That might be a much better way of handling all the excitement."

In the absence of such a column, I once again feel the need to comment on one or two of the latest blunders. Now the Abbey itself has opened as a convalescent home for officers there’s no improvement in the sardine-tin formation of the beds, and still no room for lockers or anywhere to keep personal items. Mrs. Crawley seems to be conducting affairs at Downton, and with Major Clarkson and Lady Sybil spending every waking minute there as well, it makes me wonder what’s happening down at Downton village cottage hospital. It was chaos there last week, and with 50% of the staff gone, things must be reaching a critical point. I say 50%, but with Thomas moving down the road as well, more like 75%.

Thomas Barrow. In the first series he was exposed at Downton as a thief. With war on the horizon he decided to jump before he was dismissed and joined the Territorial branch of the Royal Army Medical Corps. This ensured (so he thought) that he would get a cushy number when the wartime chips were down. Somehow he ended up in the thick of the fighting, having a few fags in a trench under constant bombardment. I can’t quite work out what he was actually doing in that trench. Was he attached to a Regimental Aid Post, or attached to a Field Ambulance perhaps? If it was ever explained, I missed it. Apologies. He intentionally exposed himself to sniper fire and after recovering from his self-inflicted injury, and by the miracles of modern television script-writing, he ends up in charge of the convalescent home at Downton Abbey.

Thomas Barrow. Thief, liar, manipulator, coward. Just the man for the job. Well, not exactly, as no UK convalescent home had RAMC staff. There was absolutely no way a RAMC corporal (sorry, Acting-Sergeant) would work in that type of unit or give orders to sick officers. Complete drivel and tosh. There should at least have been a trained nurse, but unfortunately no provision has been made for even one in this series.

The surprise of the week (errors no longer being surprises) came when Lady Mary announced that a friend of the family wanted to come to Downton from Middlesbrough to convalesce, and both Mrs. Crawley and Major Clarkson were up in arms.
‘Middlesbrough General will have their own arrangements about where their officers convalesce’ declared Mrs. C. And Major C. agreed:
‘Downton must function as part of the official system or it can’t function at all.’

So Lord Fellowes KNOWS there was an official system – that rather took my breath away. Is it better to know about something and choose to ignore it, or make errors because you failed to do the research and never knew about it at all? (Vote NOW). And I must just add here (pedant that I am) that there was only one military hospital in Middlesbrough, not the General Hospital, and no officer beds in the town at all.

However I did notice one bit of light flickering in the drawing-room when the near-exploding Carson exclaimed:
‘So we just make it up as we go along?’
Spot on, Carson.

Downton Abbey - Hospital or Bedlam?

2011-09-29T14:03:00.003+01:00

I was a keen follower of the first series of Downton Abbey. As someone from a working-class background I’ve never been too keen on toffs, but I’ve been persuaded over the past few years that as a researcher of Great War nurses, a basic knowledge of upper-class whims, desires and inter-marrying might be useful background. And so it has been. When I heard that the second series was going to see the Abbey as a hospital I was very aware that it would be too easy for the writer(s) to get it wrong. But I was unprepared for just how wrong it could be. I’ve read that the first series cost approximately £1 million an episode, so presumably this second series is no cheaper, and with that budget it might be hoped that a few pounds would be spent on decent research into the formation, organisation and administration of military hospitals during the Great War.

Not a bit of it. The portrayal falters at every step. I can see only too clearly that there are not a lot of sources out there to punch a writer in the face, and it might need a bit more digging to uncover the real story, but come Lord Fellowes, with a million an episode this is poor stuff.

During the Great War military ‘hospitals’ were divided into two types, central hospitals and auxiliary hospitals. The former were the larger units run under the auspices of the War Office. They were staffed in the main by officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps and nurses of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Force Nursing Service. Men were admitted to a central hospital, assessed and treated, and when appropriate (days, weeks or months) transferred out to one of the many satellite auxiliary units for which each central hospital had responsibility. The auxiliaries came under the control of the Joint War Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John, and were staffed by nurses under contract to them. Downton village cottage hospital could be nothing but an auxiliary hospital. And as a small, local, auxiliary hospital, it would still have conformed to the very high standards set by the Joint War Committee. So where does it fail?

Auxiliary hospitals did not employ Royal Army Medical Corps orderlies. Thomas could never have worked there. But then, the whole tale of Thomas’ return is pure fantasy.

Auxiliary hospitals did not, except in the rarest of circumstances, admit men direct from disembarkation. Their patients would already have been treated and cared for at a local central hospital. The raggle-taggle stream of wounded officers, shirts hanging out, blood oozing from their dressings, arms in slings bandaged over their uniforms was less likely than Haig riding in on his horse. Are these supposed to be men ‘straight from Arras.’ Quite ridiculous.

So many beds would never been crammed into such a small space. How does the writer imagine that nurses would have walked between the beds? Washed the patients and dressed their wounds? Fed them? Cleaned the floors? The ward looked worse than the worst of the casualty clearing stations on the Western Front in 1914. Far worse than Bedlam. Is Lord Fellowes aware that officers were treated rather differently from other ranks? His ‘ward’ is barely fit for pigs, let alone soldiers, and never officers.

Why is there no uniformed trained nurse? I’m afraid Mrs. Crawley, for all her wise words and ‘experience’ simply won’t do. She might act in an administrative role as Commandant, but wouldn’t be allowed to take part in giving out drugs or patient care. Mrs Crawley and the Major moving patients on stretchers was laughable (if it wasn’t so tear-inducing). And rookie VAD Miss Sybil doing a medicine round – complete poppycock. She’d have been lucky if she’d been allowed to wash the lockers or set trays.

The VADs were in the wrong uniform. They wore the grey dresses of St. John’s Ambulance Brigade VADs, but with the armlets of the British Red Cross. If they were supposed to be BRCS VADs, then they should have been in blue dresses, if St. John VADs, they should have been wearing the appropriate armlets. But of course, nobody ever gets the uniform right – only nurses so it’s hardly important.

It was fun to see Thomas being asked by Mrs. Crawley to stand in for Lady Sybil and do her VAD duties so she could go home for dinner. Fun? Nonsense.

And finally (for now), a blind officer would never, not in a million years, wash up in a tin-pot cottage hospital in Yorkshire. From fairly early in the war all blind officers were treated at No.2 London General Hospital (Territorial Force), Chelsea, where they received the most up to date and experienced care available, later almost certainly being transferred to one of the London hostels of St. Dunstans.

I suppose there’s always next week. I wonder what a ward in Downton Abbey itself will add to the hospital picture? I feel sure that it has to be better – I pray it couldn’t be any worse. And to exit where I entered, there are so few sources on Great War hospitals, and so much inaccuracy and misinformation spread around, both in books and on the web, that there is a great need for intelligent research. This Downton portrayal will now whip around the world and be used as a model of the truth by one and all, especially those who misguidedly believe it’s a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It will leave a legacy of falsehoods. Julian Fellowes has the background, he has the money, but unfortunately he lacks the knowledge.

The RRC and the Great War

2011-09-25T19:43:00.002+01:00

I've just been extracting a few facts and figures about the Royal Red Cross award during the Great War from my database - here:

The Royal Red Cross and the Great War

Not a good day ...

2011-09-04T15:14:00.003+01:00

While doing some work on my transcription of the official war diary of Maud McCarthy, Matron-in-Chief with the British Expeditionary Force, I stopped at this entry. It must have been a very trying day, among a whole war-ful of trying days, but somehow it always makes me smile and give thanks for today's quiet life:

17 December 1914
After many delays left for Abbeville at 10.30am. Endless punctures and delays and after dark ran into 2 French carts at separate intervals, on the wrong side of the road on each occasion – not supplied with lights of any kind. Both sides of the car were knocked about, and in the end when starting for the 3rd time, the steering gear was out of action and on the brow of the hill just escaped a serious accident, the car being brought to a stand still by coming into contact with a tree. Got out. Walked back to office and reported the matter.
Found many official letters awaiting me; received news that one of the Nursing Sisters at No.8 had gone mad.

When that time comes

2011-08-28T19:30:00.003+01:00

Website owners often worry about what will happen when they're no longer able to maintain their site for whatever reason. Even if the finances hang in there, it's a fact of life that death will intervene at some point in the future. Books endure, of course, and people constantly ask me why I haven't written a book. I like the web and the freedom it gives to write, add, change and take away. I've used it to give access to transcriptions of many documents that wouldn't be available to many people otherwise, and that gives me pleasure - too many things are hidden away, invisible to the general public unless they have the time and money to access them. The British Library have addressed this problem, and set up the UK Web Archive, whereby they save snapshots of websites of interest every six months or so, and preserve them for the future, safe from the time when a live site will exist no more. So it comes as some comfort to know that Scarletfinders will be around long after I depart. Sometime in the far distant future send me a postcard to let me know if you like it.

The British Library UK Web Archive

Some new names from Edith Appleton's Diary

2011-08-25T14:09:00.006+01:00

A bit of nosing around in service files at The National Archives yesterday has resulted in some more surnames in the diary being confirmed. There is varying information associated with each one, but hopefully enough to give a good idea of their identity:

CHARLESWORTH, Annie; strong family connections with Wombwell, Yorkshire, and her address given towards the end of the war was The Hall, Wombwell, Yorkshire. Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

CONSTABLE, Nora; born in Ireland circa 1875, and her family were living in Charlbury, Oxfordshire during the Great War. Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

COULTER Susanna; born in Ireland; trained as a nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary 1908-1911; home address throughout the war was Westland House, Londonderry, Ireland. Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

DENTON, Annie Blackley; born 26 November 1868 in Birkenhead, Liverpool, and died in 1957 in Worthing, West Sussex; Matron, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, and had previous service during the Boer War

GREGSON, Mabel Mary; born 24 April 1874 in Bradford, and during the Great War home address and that of her mother was in the Finchley area of North London. Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

HUTCHINSON Ethel; born circa 1875 in Nottingham, daughter of John and Mary Hutchinson. Sisters Gertrude and Annie and brothers John, Ben and Thomas. Permanent address for most of war 300 Bluebell Hill Road, Nottingham. Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. Awarded the Military Medal in 1916 while working at No.33 Casualty Clearing Station, Bethune.

LATHAM Kathleen Mary; born in Richmond-upon-Thames in early 1880, the daughter of Thomas Latham, a barrister, and his wife Mary Harriet, née Doveton. Mary Latham died within three months of her daughter's birth, her death was registered in the June quarter of the same year. Kathleen had one elder brother, Fenton Henry Latham, born in 1877. She trained as a nurse at St. Bartholomew's Hospital between 1906 and 1909. Nursing Sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. Her home address during the Great War was 'Stillingflete, Folkestone, Kent.'

MAIR Jean Dixon; born 25 February 1887, daughter of W. Mair, joiner and cartwright. Family home at Rose Cottage, Whauphill, Wigtownshire, Scotland. Trained as a nurse in Manchester 1909-1912. Staff Nurse, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. Known to have married after her demobilisation in 1919, though married name unknown

RAPER, Olive Louise; born circa 1887 in Great Wakering, Essex; Nursing Sister, Territorial Force Nursing Service

RITCHIE-THOMSON, Mary Lamont; born 21 August 1870 in Tobermory, Isle of Mull. Nursing sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

TILNEY, Constance; born circa 1887. During the Great War her mother was living in Ashburnham Road, Bedford, and post-war Miss Tilney had connections in South Africa

TULLY, Elizabeth; Born in Scotland, and family connections during the Great War with Morebattle, Kelso

Edith Appleton's Diary - help required

2011-08-21T15:01:00.011+01:00

I've been asked to post this information to try and find present day relatives of some of those named in Edith Appleton's diary. The most likely way that people will come across these names is while pursuing family history research on the web, so the more places it appears, the more chance there will be of family members being found (I hope).

*****

A television company is trying to trace the descendents of anyone nursed by, or who knew or worked alongside, Sister Edith Appleton, a nurse working in various locations in France throughout the First World War. An index detailing names is below. If you recognise anybody, please get in touch and your details will be forwarded for a potential television project. Although referred to only by surname in the diary, it has been possible to fully identify most of those named below, and more names will be added soon

NURSES

ATKINSON, Miss, also known as ‘Atky,’ a VAD from New Zealand, b. 1860

BALDR(E)Y, Ellen, born in Norfolk, and at the outbreak of war living at 49 Blackwater Road, Eastbourne, Sussex. Served during the Boer War with the Army Nursing Service Reserve. During the Great War an Acting Matron, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

BLAKELY, Maud(e) Mary; a doctor’s daughter, born on 6 March 1874 in Fivemiletown, Co. Tyrone, Ireland. Trained as a nurse at Chelsea Infirmary, London, between 1895 and 1898. Served with Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve during the Boer War before joining Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse in February 1903. Promoted Sister in February 1904 and during the Great War was Acting Principal Matron in France and Flanders. Maud Blakely was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, in January 1916, a Bar to the award in January 1919 and the OBE in May 1927. Her sister, Jane Lavens Blakely also served in QAIMNS during the Great War

CLEMENTS, Mary; born 27 January 1875 in Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone, the daughter of a Presbyterian Minister (believed to be William Clements). She trained as a nurse at The London Hospital, Whitechapel, between 1898 and 1901, and was appointed to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in January 1905 as a Staff Nurse, being promoted to Sister in December 1906. During the Great War Mary Clements served as an Acting Matron, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, in January 1917. She reached the rank of Matron in 1927, and retired from the service in January 1930

CONGLETON, Jessie Hume; born 12 November 1872 in Newport, Fife; educated at Dundee High School, and trained as a nurse at Dundee Royal Infirmary between 1896 and 1899. Jessie Congleton was appointed as a Staff Nurse in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in September 1906, and promoted to the rank of Nursing Sister in April 1914. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, in June 1915, and was also mentioned in Army Orders in early 1916 ‘for conspicuous bravery during a fire at No.14 Stationary Hospital.’ She retired from QAIMNS in March 1924, and died on 20 April 1932.

DENNE, Ethel Mary; born 3 December 1872 in Hounslow, Middlesex, the daughter of William Robert and Emily Denne. At the time of her birth her father was a bank clerk in Hounslow, but was later employed as a poultry farmer. She was educated at Notting Hill High School, and trained as a nurse at St. Marylebone Infirmary, London, between 1897 and 1900. Ethel Denne was appointed to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in February 1903, and promoted Sister in August 1904. During the Great War she served as an Acting Matron, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, in January 1917, and a Bar to the award in April 1919. She retired from the service in December 1927 and died in Hastings in 1956 at the age of 83 years

GASCOIGNE, Elsie Vera Orby, born circa 1880 in Wiltshire, died 1956

HAMILTON-WATTS, Madeline Hamilton, Sister, Territorial Force Nursing Service, born circa 1882 in Plaistow, Essex, and died in Aldershot in 1974

HANSARD, Ethel Maud, nursing sister, trained St. Bartholomew’s Hospital between 1906 and 1909

HARTIGAN, Helena; born 8 April 1878 in Crean, Co. Limerick, the daughter of James Hartigan, gentleman farmer, and Maria Ryan Hartigan. Trained as a nurse at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, between 1901 and 1904 before joining Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in May 1905. Held the position of Acting Principal Matron in France and Flanders during the Great War, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class in June 1915, and a Bar to the award in January 1919. Retired from the service in June 1928, and died in 1931, aged 53 years. Her brother was Lt. General James Andrew Hartigan, Royal Army Medical Corps

HINDLE, Hilda

KABERRY, Mabel Lydia; born 15 May 1877 in Pontefract, Yorkshire, the daughter of Isaac Kaberry, a solicitor, and his wife Mary. Trained as a nurse at Bristol General Hospital between 1899 and 1902 where she was awarded the gold medal as top student of her year. She was appointed to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse in June 1905, and promoted Sister in November 1910. She held the position of Acting Matron during most of her Great War service, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross, Second Class, in January 1918. Her elder sister, Ethel Kate Kaberry, also trained as a nurse and served with QAIMNS, resigning on the grounds of ill-health in 1913.

LATHAM, Kathleen Mary; born in Richmond-upon-Thames in early 1880, the daughter of Thomas Latham, a barrister, and his wife Mary Harriet, née Doveton. Mary Latham died within three months of her daughter's birth, her death registered in the June quarter of the same year. Kathleen had one elder brother, Fenton Henry Latham, born in 1877. She trained as a nurse at St. Bartholomew's Hospital between 1906 and 1909. During the Great War was a nursing sister with Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. Her home address during the Great War was 'Stillingflete, Folkestone, Kent

McCARTHY, Miss/later Dame Emma Maud, Matron-in-Chief, France and Flanders

MAXEY, Kate; born in Spennymoor, County Durham in 1877, the daughter of Walter John and Jane Maxey (née Watford). She trained as a nurse at Leeds General Infirmary between 1900 and 1903. She enrolled in the Territorial Force Nursing Service in January 1912 while working in Leeds, and was attached to No.2 Northern General Hospital (Territorial Force) as a Staff Nurse. On the outbreak of war she was mobilised and went to France on 9 October 1914, initially to No.8 General Hospital, Rouen, being promoted to Sister in September 1917. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, and the Military Medal for her actions at No.58 Casualty Clearing Station on the night of 21 March 1918, the citation reading:
For gallantry and conspicuous devotion to duty displayed during a recent hostile bombing raid on a CCS. Although severely wounded herself, she went to the aid of another Sister, who was fatally wounded, and did all she could for her. Later, although suffering severe pain, she showed an example of pluck and endurance which was inspiring to all

RENTZSCH, Ethel Maude; born on 5 April 1970 in Hackney, London the daughter of Benjamin and Marie (Edith) Rentzsch. Educated at Notting Hill High School, and trained as a nurse at King’s College Hospital, London, between 1896 and 1899. Ethel Rentzsch was appointed as a Staff Nurse to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in May 1905 and promoted Sister in 1909. She had a brother, Sigismund Rentzsch, which suggests the family were descended from the well known 19th century watchmaker of the same name. Ethel Rentzsch retired from QAIMNS in August 1924 and died in Brighton in 1941.

SCHREINER, Believed to be either Ursula Hester Schreiner or Frances Lydall Schreiner, both South African VADs.

SMITH, Gertrude Mary Wilton (also WILTON-SMITH); born 14 April 1872 in Folkingham, Lincolnshire, the daughter of William Wilton Smith, a clergyman, and his wife Louisa. Trained as a nurse at Bedford County Hospital between 1897 and 1900, and appointed to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse in July 1904. Promoted Sister in June 1906, and during the Great War served as an Acting Matron from June 1915. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class in June 1915 and a Bar to the award in January 1919. Gertrude Wilton Smith retired from the service on 21 October 1926

SMITH, Jeanie Macpherson Barclay (also BARCLAY-SMITH); born in Scotland 22 February 1874, the daughter of John Smith, a pharmacist, and his wife Margaret. Trained as a nurse at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary between 1901 and 1904 and joined Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse in September 1907. She resigned from the service in July 1911, but returned on the outbreak of the Great War to serve once more. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, on 23 June 1915. Jeanie Barclay Smith died of endocarditis on 28 April 1916, and is buried at Etaples Military Cemetery.

STEEN, Lavinia Eliza Caroline; born in St. Petersburg, Russia, 20 January 1869, the daughter of a stockbroker. She trained as a nurse at Bristol General Hospital between 1891 and 1894, and was appointed to the Army Nursing Service in March 1897, transferring to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service in February 1903. She served in South Africa during the Boer war and was promoted to Matron in May 1910, the rank she held during the Great War. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross, First Class, in June 1916, and a Bar to the award in March 1919. After being invalided home from France in March 1916 (diary 9/3/16) she was granted sick leave, and later returned to work as the Matron of Reading War Hospital, Berkshire. She retired from the service on the grounds of ill-health in December 1922

TRUSLOVE, Annie Elizabeth, b. circa 1875 in Warwickshire

TUNLEY, Mabel Mary; born 10 July 1970 in Pontypridd, South Wales, the daughter of Charles William Tunley, a schoolteacher, and his wife Louisa (née Smith). She trained as a nurse at Leeds General Infirmary between 1896 and 1899, and soon after the completion of her training served with Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve in South Africa during the Boer War. She was appointed to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse in March 1903, rising to become an Acting Principal Matron in France and Flanders during the Great War. Mabel Tunley received the Royal Red Cross, First Class in January 1916, and a Bar to the award in January 1919. In September 1916 she was awarded the Military Medal for bravery under fire, the citation reading:
At Bethune, on the 7th August 1916, she did exceptionally good work in assisting getting all the patients, 260, down to the cellars, so that when the Clearing Station was eventually hit not one of the patients received a scratch. Her cheeriness and courage were instrumental in keeping everyone who came in contact with her up to the mark. She was slightly wounded and remained at duty.
She retired from the service in July 1925, and died in Hull in September 1932 from the complications of diabetes

WAITE, Margaret Bowman; just surname given, and believed to be this woman, but not able to confirm in the absence of a service file.

WELFORD, Millie, VAD

SOLDIERS/PATIENTS

BARBER, Albert Edward, M.M., L/Cpl 9189, Essex Regiment
BELL-IRVING, Captain Malcolm McBean
BERREL, John, Private 2827, Seaforth Highlanders
BLOGG, Edward Basil, Major, Royal Engineers
CHITTY, Henry Leonard, Serjeant 12/3583, Auckland Regiment
COOPER, T., Private 1633, Yorkshire Regiment
HENDRY, Mr., a wounded officer with family living in Paris
HAMMOND, Paul, Captain, East Lancashire Regiment
KERR, Charles, Private 8209, Manchester Regiment
LENNOX, James, Rifleman 1925, Royal Irish Rifles
LIMBRICK, George Thomas Alfred, Private 1265, Australian Infantry
MADDOX, Sam, a patient
MIDDLETON, F. G., Serjeant 639, Lancashire Fusiliers
PARTLIN, J. E., Serjeant 15967, Border Regiment
PIERCE, a New Zealand Sergeant-Major and patient
ROGERS, a patient from Sandwich
RUDMAN, a patient
SAWDON, George Herbert, Sapper 59612, Royal Engineers
THACKERAY, Edward Rennell, Colonel, Royal Field Artillery
VERNON LEE, Mr., patient, formerly musician and composer
WANSTALL, Ernest

A full list of all those mentioned in the diary, identified or otherwise, can be found on the following page:

Edith Appleton's Diary - complete list of those mentioned

If you are related to any of those named above, and wish to get in touch, please contact Dick Robinson through the visitor's book here:

Edith Appleton - Visitors' Book

Or by contacting me via the email link on my profile page in the right-hand menu.

A Bit of Luck

2011-08-10T13:27:00.002+01:00

I was very excited to wake up early on Sunday morning and find an email on my phone telling me that one of my book 'wants' had turned up, and asking if I wanted to buy it. The book in question was Kate Luard's 'Unknown Warriors' and definitely my most 'wanted.' I've got a wide range of old and new books relating to nursing during the Great War, but this one had previously eluded me - I've found a couple of copies before, only to be pipped at the post, and one or two that I couldn't afford. This time I was determined not to miss out, and my copy arrived this morning, complete with Kate Luard's hand-written dedication to her brother inside:

T. B. L. from K. E. L.
21.3.30

The cover is a little tatty, but the pages still so tight that I'm not sure it was ever read, or certainly not more than once. I think that's about to change!

Unknown Warriors - Extracts from the Letters of K. E. Luard, R.R.C.
Chatto and Windus, 1930

Military hospitals 1917

2011-08-08T17:43:00.002+01:00

I've recently completed a database of all the hospitals that were caring for military personnel in the autumn of 1917, and thought it might be helpful to add some of this information to my Scarletfinders website. The database is quite detailed, so not easy to put all of that on the site - both author and readers would lose the will to live I think - but I've added the names of all 2,500 hospitals with at least the town they were situated in (or more correctly 'in which they were situated'!). Hopefully it will come in useful for someone. The new pages start here:

UK military hospitals 1917

I'm collecting quite a few photos of these hospitals now - some were in very grand buildings - and will add some here soon.

Scarletfinders - new content

2011-07-17T12:09:00.003+01:00

I've recently added quite a few personal accounts to the web site, and also some miscellaneous accounts which are not really nursing, but relate either to women's war service, hospitals or patient/soldier care in one way or another. I thought it might be helpful to list some of them here, with links to the web pages:

Nurses' Tales
A Territorial Force Sister - Isobel Birrell
3 Casualty Clearing Station - Kathleen Latham
A Base Hospital in France - Adelaide Walker
A Nurse's Life in Italy - Dorothea Walker
An Officers' Hospital in France - Eva Cicely Fox
North Russia 1918/19 - Helena Hartigan
No.27 Ambulance Train
Hospital Ship 'Warilda' torpedoed - Daisy Dobbs

Miscellaneous Accounts
Ontario Military Hospital, Orpington
Henley-in-Arden open-air hospital
British Red Cross Hospital, Netley
Women in the War Office
Young Women's Christian Association
Women's Forage Corps
Rouen Station Coffee Shop
Visitors' Hostel, Le Havre
Relatives' Hostel, Le Touquet
Grey Hut, Chateau d'Oex (Prisoners of War)

There will certainly be more, and I'll add the links here as they appear.

The Superwoman

2011-06-20T15:39:00.002+01:00

From the magazine of the 4th London General Hospital (King's College Hospital)

Not nurses, but ...

2011-06-17T12:27:00.003+01:00

I've recently been adding some transcripts of Great War articles to my web site - not nursing, but either connected round the edges to hospitals, or to women's war work in general. I've tried to find some areas that are poorly understood, but which add background information to other more popular wartime subjects. One of them, which must have been written by a rather patronising man, concerns women's work at the War Office, and contains some alarming lines such as:

... whether they are capable of seeing through complex problems it is difficult to judge ...

... As a whole, women's work is inferior to that of men, but against this has to be put the fact that at present they are in their infancy as far as public and office life is concerned ...

But at least interesting to find some mention of these women in print! The full article is here:

Women in the War Office

Nurses in India

2011-06-08T14:11:00.000+01:00

There's a very useful page on the FIBIS website (Families in British India Society) on nurses and nurses in India, both civil and military. It gives exact references for many of the relevant documents both at The National Archives (Kew) and the British Library, as well as trails to follow in other libraries and archives. It's a subject that is very under-researched, probably because of a lack of source material, but this page is a great help to family historians and others trying to find nurses in India.

Nurses in India

More from the Quai d'Escale

2011-05-27T14:49:00.004+01:00

A couple more images from the 'The Goodbye Book of the Quai d'Escale' marking the closure of No.2 General Hospital in 1919.

ECONOMY

A VAD's NIGHTMARE

The Goodbye Book

2011-05-16T14:20:00.002+01:00

I like the cover image of this booklet, published to mark the closing of No.2 General Hospital, Le Havre in the spring of 1919.

Captains Emmett and Pratt

2011-05-16T13:17:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I entered the final award from the third volume of the Royal Red Cross Register into my database which now covers the years from 1883 to 1994. Several things changed in more than one hundred years, but even at the end most of the awards were still going to the very senior or long-serving nurses - unsurprisingly perhaps. It seems likely that in many cases the award was given as a retirement 'present' for loyalty and devotion over a lifetime of service. From the 1950s onwards there appears to have been a sort of precedent whereby first-class awards (RRC) went to Brigadiers, Colonels and a very few Majors (and the relevant ranks in the Navy and Royal Air Force), and second-class awards (ARRC) to Majors, Captains, all NCOs and virtually all men, whatever their rank.
But I came across two awards which stuck out like beacons, and they were two first-class awards, one to Captain Susan Pratt, published in the London Gazette in June 1989, and the second to Captain Sally Emmett (LG December 1989) both of Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. They appear to be two of the few awardees below the rank of Major to receive anything at all, and almost unique in receiving the RRC rather than the ARRC. Too early for the Gulf War, too junior for long-service to enter the equation, I wonder what Susan Pratt and Sally Emmett did to earn their reward? There was one similar award in 1993, to a Captain Christian Townend and as I work through the London Gazette to bring the database right up to date, it will be interesting to see if the trend changes, or whether these were quite as rare as they seem.

Après la Guerre

2011-05-09T14:46:00.002+01:00

This fictional short story appeared in a booklet called 'The Goodbye Book of the Quai D'Escale' which was published to mark the closure of No.2 General Hospital, Havre, in March 1919. This piece is simply signed 'E. S. Duffin' and a check of the British Red Cross Register of Overseas Volunteers shows her to be Emma Sylvia Duffin. A subsequent web search found that she was born in Belfast in 1893, the daughter of Adam Duffin, a prominent businessman, and his wife Maria Drennan. Emma Duffin was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, Churchill's School, Shrewsbury and Belfast Art College. She worked for more than three years as a VAD during the Great War, in Egypt and at No.2 General Hospital, Le Havre, and during the Second World War she acted as a VAD Commandant to hospitals in Belfast. She died in 1979.
I hazard a guess that the ship (though fictional of course!) is based on the RMS Aquitania, though at the time that she wrote this she could have had little idea of how the ship would fare during the following decades.

It was a cold day in late October and dusk was beginning to fall when, with much blowing of whistles from her satellites, the tugs, and to the accompaniment of shouts from the porters on the quay-side waiting to unload her, the big transatlantic liner swung into her place in Havre harbour. An hour or two later the big restaurants and customs rooms were seething with a cosmopolitan crowd of people, jostling each other in their eagerness to get their luggage through the customs in the quickest possible time, or to obtain something to eat and drink before continuing their journey. People of whatever nationality seldom show themselves at their best when travelling. They almost invariably regard themselves as the only travellers of importance, and the fact that they should have to share a cabin, or even a railway carriage, with fellow travellers, or take their place in a queue to await their turn while a much harried Customs Official examines their baggage, makes them secretly indignant and causes them to regard their fellow passengers, especially if they happen to be of another nationality, as enemies, only travelling in order to retard their progress.

John Maxwell, a journalist by profession, and too accomplished a traveller to allow himself to be worried by the small discomforts encountered on such journeys, amused himself as was his wont, but studying the crowd and surmising what might be their various occupations and destinations, and what had brought them from America to Sunny France. He had had a touch of fever on his way over and had been confined to his cabin during most of the voyage, so he had not made the acquaintance of any of his fellow passengers, nor had an opportunity of hearing the usual gossip and tittle-tattle indulged in on board ship.
The majority of the First Class passengers were naturally Americans come to ‘do the Continent’ with a good sprinkling of business men. Close to one of the glass doors opening on to the wide balcony overlooking the harbour, stood a slight fair girl with well dressed hair and piquant little face, and that curious colourless complexion which distinguishes an American girl from her English cousin. She was talking eagerly to a handsome square-jawed young man who was regarding her with adoring eyes, and as some of her conversation in a high, rather nasal voice, drifted to John Maxwell, he dismissed the pair with a smile as a honeymoon couple and turned his attention to the tall man with the fur collar on his coat whose air of unmistakable prosperity led to the conjecture that he must be one of the multi-millionaires from the States. From there his eyes wandered to a dapper little Frenchman who was talking rapidly in his own language to a fellow-countryman, discussing the business he had been transacting in New York. He had been standing there for some time thus, idly letting his imagination weave the supposed destinies of the various groups, when his eyes rested on a girl standing alone. She was quietly but smartly dressed and her rather vivid little face stood out against the background of moving figures, but what arrested his attention was her expression. She seemed to be in the crowd but not of it, her eyes were alert and she was glancing from one side to the other of the big waiting-room, yet, curiously enough, she gave the impression of not seeing the people in front of her, and of not knowing quite what she sought. Once a man jostled her and lifting his hat apologised profoundly in broken English, yet she neither seemed to see nor hear him.

John Maxwell felt suddenly compelled to make her acquaintance and he slowly began to make his way towards her. It was with a distinct feeling of disappointment that he saw her suddenly turn, and rather to his surprise, pass through the glass doors on to the balcony and make for the Third Class waiting rom. After a moment’s hesitation he followed her, and found her standing at the door with the same wide-eyed interested expression, yet again he had the impression that she was not seeing what was before her. Finally he plucked up courage to address her, and raising his hat asked her if she was looking for anyone or if he could be of any service to her. She turned on him a slightly puzzled expression like someone awaking from a dream, then smiled a delightful, bright smile, and with a delicious little laugh she said,
“Of course you think I am quite mad. I know I’ve been wandering about looking like a lunatic, but you know, this was a Hospital in the big war and I was a V.A.D. here; and while I am waiting for my husband to get our luggage through the customs I have been amusing myself trying to see it all again as it was.”
Maxwell was interested. He remembered now having heard that this had been a big surgical hospital, and he too turned and looked at the room trying to picture it as it must have been.
“How very strange it must seem to you,” he said.
“Strange isn’t a strong enough word. It is quite, quite an eerie feeling. I feel rather as I imagine mortals must feel who have been in fairyland, and come back to visit earth again, - a little homesick and full of regrets for many things and yet not wishing to come back to it all. Oh, the lockers I have scrubbed there, and there isn’t a ledge in this room I haven’t dusted.” As she spoke she ran a finger in a beautifully fitting suede glove along one of the ledges in question. She laughed a little rippling laugh as she held it up for his inspection with a thick coating of dust on the point. “How shocked our Matron would be if she could see them now. And I was just thinking in the other room, when that very beautiful and elegant young woman was serving out drinks, how Sister would have ‘strafed’ me if I hadn’t polished the counter better than that.” Her eyelids crinkled up and her eyes twinkled at the remembrance, then suddenly took on the dreamy look they had worn when John Maxwell first encountered them, and a sad note crept into her voice as she continued, “And the men I have seen die here, and suffer; and the hundreds who spent sleepless nights gazing at the rafters in the ceiling. I can hear them now, the Jocks, ‘Sister, can ye sorrt my pillows again? I canna bide still.’ The old Paddies, ‘Sister dear, could ye get me something wud let me slape? Oi’m desthroyed wid the pain in me leg.’ The Yankees and the Canadians, ‘Gee, I guess that hurts some.’ And the Ozzies, ‘That’s bonza Sister.’” One by one she imitated the different accents.
“And the Englishmen, don’t forget them” said Maxwell as she paused. “I’m one of them and I’m beginning to resent being left out.” She turned a reproachful look on him.
“As if I would forget them. Nobody ever would who had nursed them. I didn’t forget any of them, not even the poor old Boches with their ‘Wasser, Schwester, Wasser bitte.’ It made you so sorry for them that you forgot to hate them.”
“Why Molly,” a man’s voice made them both turn and Maxwell saw a tall, broad-shouldered, clean shaven Englishman regarding them with surprise. “What are you doing in the third class room? I told you to stay where I left you till I came back; I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“I’m so sorry Don, I’ve been reminiscing and I forgot.”
The tall man smiled down indulgently at her. “Well, I’ve got our luggage through and I find we can get through to Paris tonight, so I think we’d better go and secure seats in the train.”
She assented, and with a bright nod to Maxwell she passed through the open doors, and he watched the couple go down the broad shallow stairway and disappear from his view.

The Sinking of the Aragon

2011-05-06T16:14:00.003+01:00

The second account is of events at the time of the sinking of the Aragon, recalled by a V.A.D. It comes from The Nursing Mirror and Midwives' journal of 9 February 1918.

In the Admiralty official list it is reported that the transport Aragon was torpedoed and sunk in the Eastern Mediterranean on December 30, and also that eight female nurses on board the Osmanieh were lost. The following nurses are officially announced as ‘accidentally drowned': Sisters F. D. Compton, F. Tindall, and A. Welford, and Staff Nurse M. D. Roberts, all of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve; also Miss F. M. Faithfull, Miss G. Bytheway, Miss L. Midwood, and Miss H. Rogers, all V.A.D.s; in addition to Miss C. Ball, Miss W. M. Brown, Miss U. Duncanson, and Miss N. Hawley, whose details we announced in our issue for January 26.

A V.A.D. Nurse who was on board the Aragon writes home to her parents that the vessel sailed from Marseilles with destroyers as escorts. The vessel left the harbour the following Sunday. Proceeding, the writer says:
"No doubt we were watched then, but as we were so close to land we thought we were quite safe. At about 10.30 in the morning we could see the land. I went down to my cabin, and the steward was attending to my trunk, which had got damaged on the journey, when, at 10.55, there was a terrible crash, and the steward cried out 'My God, we've got it!' Anyway, he got me outside, though I was not frightened, and gave me my life-belt, and I ran up the two flights of stairs to our boat stations, as we sisters had been detailed to boats. In a minute we had orders to get into the boats, which we promptly did without any confusion. We were lowered - which was a shaky business - a doctor and a colonel accompanying us, and we got away from the ship as soon as we could. By that time we could see the stern of the Aragon down in the water and her bows in the air. The troops on board her were singing. By Jove! It took some doing. We picked up a lot of the boys in our life-boat off the rafts, and when we were packed we made for a trawler which was close by. Fortunately, there were several close at hand, as we were so near land.

In the meantime we looked at the Aragon, which was rapidly sinking. There were hundreds of boys in khaki on board her, and the sight I shall never forget. In fifteen minutes she had completely gone - no sign of her at all. Anyhow, we got into the trawler, and in another minute our destroyer was torpedoed right amidships. She went clean in half. She was close by, and had picked up hundreds of Tommies. They had to go down again, and, to my mind, that was the worst of all. The trawlers headed for land at once. All the sisters were saved, but there was a heavy death-roll. We had many troops on board. As soon as we reached land we were taken to a sergeants' mess close by, where we had brandy and hot tea. We were then put in ambulances and taken to hospital. We had nothing in the wide world except what we stood in."
The writer adds: "A most awful thing happened yesterday morning. Another ship was torpedoed in exactly the same place. She went down in five minutes. There were forty nurses on board, and they were all in the water. A good many, I believe, were drowned. I know they brought eight into the mortuary of the hospital.

Memories of the Aragon

2011-05-06T16:09:00.002+01:00

Several times over the last couple of years I've sent people a copy of an account of the Aragon, both before and at the time of her sinking. As it seems popular, I thought I'd add it here, which will make it easy for a web search to pick up. The first account is of the Aragon during the days following the Gallipoli landings.

Some Memories of the Good Ship
A. M. Cameron

The Gallipoli campaign must always be a poignant memory for the Army sisters who tended the wounded and sick brought to the hospital ships in such overwhelming numbers. The sinking of the good ship Aragon will bring it to the remembrance of hundreds of sisters who have so often seen it in their journeyings to the Dardanelles in the days when it was a stationary staff ship in Mudros Harbour in the Island of Lemnos. My special memory of the Aragon is a sad one.

It was in April 1915. The landing of our heroic troops at Cape Helles had been satisfactorily accomplished, though at a woeful cost. We gathered in a shipload of wounded and carried them to Alexandria. Just before the harbour was reached we had got all our patients ready for disembarkation, but when we reached the quay the news was brought to us that they must remain where they were. There was no room for them. The hospitals were flooded with wounded, and still the wounded came. The hospitals ships were insufficient to meet the rush. Temporary hospitals were being hastily improvised, and medical and nursing help and hospital ships were being hurried to the East with all possible speed. There was no dearth of willing volunteers, but they were untrained, and the number of trained nurses to meet the overwhelming need was pitifully small. Our orders were to carry our wounded to England. As we had over a hundred men who could not possibly live through a rough sea passage they were taken off and room was found for them somewhere. Our French troops were also removed. This resulted in over 200 empty cots, and these, we learned, were to be filled with wounded from the Aragon.

The Commanding Officer and the ship's captain went over to the vessel to arrange about the transference of some of these poor soldiers, and when they returned they told us a pitiful tale. Hundreds of wounded were lying all over the ship. A few medical men and a handful of orderlies had worked night and day for the relief of the sufferers, but what could they do among so many with no medical comforts and no nursing requisites? We were prepared for much, but it seemed almost more than we could bear, the passion of pity which surged up in our hearts when the men from the Aragon were brought to us. Undressed wounds absolutely polluted the atmosphere, and the poor souls, in their muddy, bloodstained clothes, their eyes bright with fever, their bodies weak through loss of blood and lack of food, made an unforgettable appeal not only to our humanity, but to our nursing instinct. They had lain in untold agony for days and nights, undressed, untended and unfed - and it had been no one's fault, merely the hard and cruel luck of war!

The cool, clean cots, the invigorating food, the careful, tender cleansing of bodies and of wounds meant more than we could ever realise to the poor men and boys who had endured so much. Doctors, sisters, and orderlies all appeared to be seized with one overwhelming idea, and that was that nothing was too good for these men from the Aragon. If human skill and nursing could save lives and limbs, the precious lives and limbs should be saved, those long and dreary hours of pain and suffering leave no permanent ill-effect. The gratitude of these men was quite pathetic. Some of them had wearily thought that only death could end their sufferings, and the unremitting care of the medical and nursing staff fell like healing balm on the tortured bodies. By the time our ship reached Southampton our patients from the Aragon were decidedly better, and I cannot remember that any deaths occurred on board.

Queen and Matrons

2011-05-01T14:50:00.002+01:00

The Daily Telegraph, 11 May 1918

In the 'Court Circular' a few days ago the announcement was made that the Queen had received Miss Margaret MacDonald, R.R.C., Matron-in-Chief of the Canadian Army Nursing Service, Miss Evelyn Conyers, R.R.C., Matron-in-Chief of the Australian Nursing Service, and Miss Mabel Thurstan, R.R.C., Matron-in-Chief of the Nurses of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. It was a gracious and spontaneous thought on the part of her Majesty, and it has behind it a significance far greater than might at first sight appear. All the nursing of the war has been carried out with a quiet reticence that has concealed the magnitude of the task performed with such splendid efficiency; and if those at home know little indeed of the actual work of our own Army Service and that of the Territorial Force Nursing Service, with the Reserves that they have built up, still less are they aware of the noble help that the daughters of the Dominions have brought to the wounded. For this recognition, truly queenly as it was, of the mercy of womanhood throughout the Empire has afforded to every nurse from overseas a sense of personal distinction. Canada, the first of the younger nations to send its highly-trained nurses, has contributed no fewer than 1,900 members to the service of the Allies. The contingents from Australia have numbered 1,500, and none will have forgotten the devoted services that they rendered at the time that the wounded from Gallipoli were needing all the care that gentleness and love could give them. From New Zealand have come 500, these being the round figures, which represents a fine response in relation to the population of the Southern Dominion. The Matrons-in-Chief have shown themselves to be women of high powers of organisation and control, and have insisted throughout upon a lofty standard of qualifications on the part of those who they have accepted for service.

Her Majesty accorded to the ladies the rare distinction of receiving them in her private apartments at Windsor Castle, and Princess Mary was also present. Specially in attendance was the Countess of Minto, whose knowledge of and sympathy with all that pertains to nursing has been so forcibly show in the service which bears her name in India. The Queen was not only extremely interested in the details that each matron could give in regard to the contingent for which she was responsible, but asked for any suggestions that might be desirable in improving the conditions and status of the nurses' important labours. Before the ladies left, the Queen showed them some of the specially notable and valuable things that she had acquired in the course of her travels, and delighted each of her guests with some of her reminiscences of their own homelands. It was indeed the intimate and homelike character of the reception that has made so strong an appeal to the nurses generally as a proof of the Queen's comprehension of the attitude of mind and the love of things domestic among the women of the daughter-lands. This is the point that is being emphasised in the hundreds of letters dwelling on the reception that are going to family circles, whether in Australia or Saskatchewan, New Zealand or Newfoundland.

V.A.D. Wisdom

2011-04-25T14:20:00.001+01:00

From the 'Daily Sketch' 14 April, 1919

The Importance of a Length of Cretonne

They had just been demobilised, the three V.A.D.s in the railway compartment, and were congratulating one another on the approaching farewells to their regulation bundles.

"I felt all the time that we had taken out the wrong things," said the girl with the three chevrons. "Those canvas baths, for instance, what a bore they've been and how little use except when you had lots of hot water and a batman to empty them - which we had about twice. Do you remember how Jones always spilled hers over everything? And those candle-lamps we were made to get. No use, except to drop grease all over the place. In every camp I went to they were strictly barred after one trial."

"I think those white coats and skirts we had out East were the most impractical things," said the girl with the R.R.C. ribbon. "It was always too hot to wear both a blouse and a drill coat, and it was impossible to get the coats properly done up. Smith and I made ourselves coat-frocks out of sheets when we got out of red-tape reach, and they were far better in every way. The St. John's black and the Red Cross blue are both wrong, too. It's hard enough to keep black and blue costumes in good order in town with a maid. In the wind and dust on active service it's impossible. We ought to have had grey or khaki."

"I thought much more about the things we should have been told to take, rather than the things we took that were no use," said the third V.A.D. "If I were going again I'd take a dozen yards of chintz or cretonne. It wouldn't take much room, and yet would make all the difference between comfort and misery in some places. You could screen off a corner of a tent when you were quartered with girls you didn't know or care about, and you could cover up your trunk and kit-bag when you were settled anywhere.
"Other things that ought to be in regulations are a small mat to stand on while dressing, and a fancy-dress costume. Why not? Dressing-up was the only relief we had from uniform, and it was difficult to contrive anything really amusing out of the few things we had. Costumes needn't take much room, and they might have saved a few cases of Balkan top. And a tea basket would be a good idea, too, instead of the regulation kettle and cup and saucer. Every V.A.D. made tea out somewhere when she could, and a basket simplifies things so."

Military Hospital

2011-04-20T18:05:00.001+01:00

The Matron, red-caped, terrible,
Inspects the ward; incredible
How tall she is - six foot - how stare
Those brown, protruberant eyes - beware,
Beware lest looming by your bed
It enter into her great head -
So huge she is, so weak you are -
To order you an enema.

Louis Lawler

Hospitals and the Great War

2011-04-18T19:04:00.002+01:00

I've just completed a database of all the UK military hospitals that were operating in 1917 - details taken from a document held at The National Archives. In total there are 2,469 on the list, and individual units varied in size from just two beds to more than three thousand. They were opened in schools and colleges, church halls and village halls, barracks, asylums and working men's clubs, private houses, manor houses, rectories, castles ... the variety is endless. Among the buildings used were some of Britain's great houses and stately homes; many no longer exist, demolished to make way for modern housing and business parks, but often their past glory remains to be seen in contemporary photographs. The fact that so many buildings were used as wartime hospitals was a unique event, and could never happen again. To wander through their past and their stories is the most enjoyable of pastimes.

Could you repeat that please?

2011-03-17T14:46:00.002Z

Thanks to a link on another nursing site I came across a new word:

Prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a historical group, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives, in multiple career-line analysis. Prosopographical research has the aim of learning about patterns of relationships and activities through the study of collective biography, and proceeds by collecting and analysing statistically relevant quantities of biographical data about a well-defined group of individuals. This makes it a valuable technique for studying many pre-modern societies. Prosopography is an increasingly important approach within.

I'm not sure I understand it, but have a sneaking feeling that it's what I'm doing!

The Last Veteran?

2011-02-23T12:31:00.003Z

There has been a fair bit of publicity this week for Florence Green, who on reaching her 110th birthday has been named as both a 'super-centenarian' and also the last surviving female 'veteran' of the Great War. As time goes by, the definition of 'last veteran' seems to have changed. Once it was used solely for those men who had met the Germans or other adversaries on the battlefield, but as they disappeared, it was broadened to include anyone who was in military service at any time during the Great War. Florence Green joined the Women's Royal Air Force in 1918, and served for a short time before the Armistice as a waitress at an R.A.F. station. Her position entitled her and her colleagues to both military status, and also, if unfortunate enough to die during service, commemoration by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

However, there were great numbers of other women working for their country at that time, many of whom were involved in direct contact with victims of war, but whose work did not offer them the same entitlements as Florence Green and her colleagues. More than 70,000 women worked during the Great War as nursing 'VADs' - members of Voluntary Aid Detachments. The vast majority of these women came under the auspices of the British Red Cross Society, and served in the United Kingdom only, and their status as civilians excluded them from being classed as military workers. They worked long hours to ensure that wounded and sick soldiers received the best possible care; they scrubbed and polished, made beds, lit fires and cooked meals; they helped with dressings and treatments, and faced, on a daily basis, sights and smells unimaginable today. For this, the vast majority were unpaid - they were indeed 'voluntary.' For the many who died during the course of their service, there is no official commemoration - as far as the Ministry of Defence and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are concerned they are the civilian nameless, unworthy of national recognition.

There are a number of women in the UK at present who are older than Florence Green. I wonder if any of them worked as young VADs during the Great War? If so, they will not be recognised. They were civilians. They are of little interest to the veteran-hunters. Oh that they might have spent their working lives during the Great War as waitresses in an officers' mess.

Florence Green - the last female veteran

Sidetracked

2011-02-16T14:27:00.003Z

What an amazing amount there is to learn with such easy access to the internet. Still roaming through the Royal Red Cross Register, I found on entry from the London Gazette in October 1954 announcing an award to a Lieutenant Audrey Mary Jones, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps:

'In recognition of brave conduct during the fire on H.M.T. EMPIRE WINDRUSH'

Like many other people I had never contemplated a life for the 'Windrush' other than its voyage in 1948 bringing migrants from the Caribbean, but its history and eventual fate is here:

Empire Windrush

She Came from Home

2011-02-03T17:48:00.003Z

I recently came across a book written in 1916 by actor Harley Granville Barker about his time serving with the British Red Cross Society in France. He was, perhaps, a rather unlikely volunteer. The book starts with an introduction by Sir Frederick Treves, and I found his final few paragraphs very touching - an emotional tribute to the thousands of women who also volunteered their services during the Great War:

'It is said that the Great War has produced no Florence Nightingale. That may be so; but it has produced a much esteemed and lovable lady, hitherto unknown in any war, who has earned for herself a reputation little less than that attained by the great pioneer of Red Cross work. She is known by the curious title of 'the V.A.D.' She works as a volunteer. She is quite a new being, yet she represents the womanhood of England, the tender-hearted, unselfish, capable woman, whose sole desire is to help the wounded soldier. She seeks no glory. She has no name. She is merely a 'V.A.D.'

She will work as a cook, as a housemaid, as a kitchen-maid, and none will beat her. She will carry trays all day and be proud of it. She will live in a railway carriage and there keep a buffet for tired men. She will tramp a station platform night and day if only she can give some comfort to a sick man in a passing train. She will nurse as far as her abilities will permit, and her abilities are considerable. She will feel it an honour to be a ward maid if only she can help to make things comfortable for the patients she scarcely sees. The men are devoted to her, and in that devotion she finds the sole reward she seeks.

One little episode that I saw in France will remain in my mind as the embodiment of the spirit of Red Cross work. A V.A.D. was holding a cup to the lips of a dying man. Looking at her with a dim curiosity he asked faintly,
"Where do you come from?"
"I come from Home," she replied
A smile spread over his face and in a while he was dead. Such was the secret of his last pleasant thought - she came from Home.'

Introduction to: The Red Cross in France: Granville Barker, Hodder and Stoughton, 1916.

Head down and work

2011-01-23T12:28:00.002Z

I remember reading on a 'Guide to Good Blogging' some time ago, that if you don't post anything for a long time, just let your readers know what you're up to that's getting in the way. In my case, it's the Royal Red Cross Register. As I've already mentioned it rather a lot of times, it might get boring to drone on and on about it, but it is taking up quite a lot of my time at present. I thought I might lose interest along the way, but there are lots of themes running through it, and plenty to ponder on and learn from. I've completed two volumes, and am now on page 154 of the 400 that make up volume three. So two world wars finished now, and going into the period of 'You've never had it so good.' There are one of two things that seem so fascinating to me that I will add more about them soon, but until then I'll try to think of something else to bang on about!

Military Medals

2010-11-14T11:08:00.003Z

This picture of General Plumer decorating nurses with the ribbon of the Military Medal is often seen, and in the past I've only given it a fleeting examination. But today I stopped to wonder who the women were, and if I could put names to them. The original caption in the newspaper said:

General Sir H. C. O. Plumer presents the Military Medal to nurses for outstanding courage when their hospital was bombed by a raiding squadron of enemy aeroplanes. They had no thought of their own safety when the bombs were falling.

I have other images of the nurse on the left - a nursing sister of the regular Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, so could easily identify her as Charlotte Lilian Annie Robinson. Looking at the nurses who were involved in the same incident, the Territorial Force Nursing Service Staff Nurse, second from left is likely to be Katherine Robertson Lowe, and the other two (one of whom is hidden by General Plumer), Acting Sister Minnie Maude de Guerin and Acting Sister Nellie Galvin, both members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. The citation for Miss Robinson (the others are similar) reads:

For conspicuous devotion to duty when a stationary hospital was struck by four bombs from an enemy aeroplane and one wing was practically cut in two, many patients being buried in the debris. Sister Robinson, at very great personal risk, went in amongst the ruins to assist in recovering the patients, quite regardless of danger, her one thought being the rescue of the patients. She displayed magnificent coolness and resource.

Charlotte Robinson served in QAIMNS for more than twenty-eight years, finally retiring in 1941.

It just doesn't add up!

2010-11-11T15:03:00.003Z

A couple of posts ago I wrote:

For services rendered during the Great War there were more than 14,000 RRCs both 1st and 2nd class issued ...

However, I was wrong. The RRC Register starts at number 1, and proceeds sedately through 2, 3, 4, 5 and onwards relentlessly. There were about 250 pre-WW1 awards, and if you browse through to the end of the Great War awards, you arrive at (roughly speaking) number 14,350. But silly of me to assume that signified the total number of wartime awards, as someone at the War Office was not too hot on what could loosely be termed 'numeracy.' All is well until award number 3,199 is reached. What follows 3,199? Can I hear you shouting '3,200'? Wrong. 3,199 is followed by 4,000, thus missing out 801 numbers. Anyone could be forgiven for a slip like this, but unfortunately it's not unique.
Award number 4,099 is followed by number 5,000; 5,099 is followed by 6,000; 6,099 is followed by 7,000 ... you get the idea. In the first two volumes this type of mistake happens seven times, resulting in the 'loss' of thousands of awards. Adding up the actual totals, it seems that there were just under 8,000 Great War awards of the Royal Red Cross - that is, of course, if I've counted correctly.

VADs and the Great War

2010-10-11T18:46:00.004+01:00

For a long time I've been meaning to write something for the website about VADs. I get quite a lot of emails asking for information on tracking them down -rather more than for trained nurses - probably because there were just so many of them, and I know the interest is out there. So eventually I've got round to writing a brief overview of their wartime work with some background information of the service, and a few pictures. And having started I'll try to add some more bits and pieces in the future. The article is here:

VADs and the Great War - an Overview

British Nurses in German East Africa

2010-09-30T18:09:00.002+01:00

British Journal of Nursing, June 2nd 1917
A Roll of Honour

The story of the imprisonment of the European Missionaries working in German East Africa on the outbreak of war is one which remains to be fully told, but now that the prisoners of Tabora have been rescued, the long silence has been broken. In the Annual Report of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa just issued we learn something of their experiences. The Archdeacon of Rovurna writes:-

'Unfortunately it was our ladies who had a very much harder time than the men. In one prison to which they were sent, and on one of their journeys, they were subjected to treatment which it is almost incredible any civilized nation could inflict. But from first to last they bore it with magnificent patience, and their cheeriness never forsook them."
Not least may we be proud of the members of the nursing profession amongst them. We read:

"The nurses who were interned in German East Africa when war broke out had a laborious time. In November, 1914, Miss Wallace and Miss Burn went to Korogwe by request of the German Government, to nurse the wounded English and Indian soldiers who were taken prisoners at the battle of Tanga, and a very busy time they had. Miss Burn stayed at Korogwe looking after relays of English wounded until the British arrived last June. Miss Wallace left in June, 1915, and was sent with Miss Gunn to Tabora where they were officially recognized by the Germans as the nurses in charge of the camp hospital."

There was a great deal of fever among the prisoners, and also a large number of blackwater fever cases, many very dangerously ill; these all recovered, though without good nursing recovery in several cases would have been impossible. Miss Davey for ten months looked after the Italian women interned at Kilimatinde, three babies being born there. Afterwards she and Miss Horne had charge of the Hospital there during an outbreak of typhoid fever among the English prisoners, some of the cases being very severe, but happily all recovered. Miss Packham went to Mrogoro to nurse the German women and children, and when the town fell stayed on in charge of the British Military Hospital. One of the British doctors wrote to the Bishop of Zanzibar later:

"We found her installed in charge of the German Hospital at Mrogoro when our Hospital - the 52nd Casualty Clearing Hospital - entered the town with the first Division at the end of August 1916. One would have thought that two years in a German prison would have been enough to rob anyone of strength and will to work. But with her it was far different. She was alwaysup and in the wards in the early morning before we were about; always the last to go to bed. Up most of the nights; for the worst cases were nursed in the verandah outside her bedroom door."

Other names in this Roll of Honour are those of Miss Kemsley, who worked first among the German women at Liwali and later among the enteric patients at Dar-es-Salaam, and, when it was taken, helped to organise the English Military Hospital; Sister Mabel and Sister Elizabeth who looked after native prisoners, many extremely ill, at Kiboriani and Bugari, and Miss Dunn, who nursed in the former place, and Miss Plant, with Miss Gunn, nursed Belgian wounded soldiers when Tabora was taken. The British Military authorities have reason to be grateful to the trained nurses of the Universities' Mission whose services were of the utmost value, and the nursing profession to be proud of their record.

The Royal Red Cross - pipped at the post

2010-09-13T18:06:00.004+01:00

A little while ago I wrote about Florence Nightingale NOT being the first recipient of the Royal Red Cross award. At present I'm carrying out a bit of research on the award, and there are some unusual facts to be found between the covers of the RRC Register. Between the first award in May 1883, and the start of the Great War, there were just 246 awards. Considering that the period covered several military campaigns where British nurses were deployed, including the Boer War, it seems a remarkably small number, but it does highlight what a rare and special honour it was to receive the award.
For services rendered during the Great War there were more than 14,000 RRCs both 1st and 2nd class issued, and to many people the bestowal of so many honours devalued the medal and sight was lost of its original intention - to reward women who has shown only the most supreme service and devotion to the nursing of military personnel. It became a token of 'job well done' rather than 'job done better than anyone else could have done it,' and also caused some divisions between the 'haves' and 'have nots' of the nursing world.

But to return to 'first' awards, it's surprising that the very first Royal Red Cross of the Great War was the prize of Mademoiselle Eugènie Antoine, of 2 Rue de Bersue, Vailly-sur-Aisne

'in recognition of her courageous and devoted services to the British wounded in hospital at Vailly-sur-Aisne whilst the British were under shell fire.'

So the great and the good among British military nurses were beaten to the post by a French civilian. But their time soon came of course, together with the other 14,000 ...

One Pair of Feet

2010-09-11T16:49:00.003+01:00

During a visit to the local Oxfam bookshop last week, I picked up a very old, tatty copy of Monica Dickens' book 'One Pair of Feet,' which was published in 1942 and is an account of her time as a probationer nurse during the early part of WW2. I last read it in the 1960s, long before I started nursing (at a time when I thought there was still some element of mystery and glamour to the job) so decided it might be worth re-visiting. It's autobiographical fiction, and could be regarded as a bit lightweight, but I found much of it surprisingly perceptive, and still relevant to my own training nearly thirty years later.

The book's Matron and ward sisters were acid-tongued petty tyrants, humourless, lacking in any vestige of sympathy or understanding, and hell-bent on keeping both staff and patients in a strait-jacket of rules, regulations and discipline. But it did seem likely that these women had something in common with the military nurses I've come to hold in such high regard. It's rather easy to view them through rose-coloured spectacles, but several Great War VADs, such as Vera Brittain and Enid Bagnold thought quite differently. Brittain, in 'Testament of Youth,' and Bagnold, in 'A Diary Without Dates,' both comment on how insular the professional nurse was, lacking any experience of life outside the hospital and devoid of interest in literature, art or politics. Monica Dickens certainly agrees with this when she writes:

Women were not meant to live en masse - except in harems. They inflate the importance of their own little centre of activity until it eclipses the rest of the world. Men manage to pigeonhole their life; work, domesticity, romance, relaxation, but a woman's life is usually as untidy as her desk. She either fails ever to concentrate on one thing at a time, or else fills one pigeonhole so full that it overflows into the others.
I don't know whether the nurses at Redwood were typical of the whole profession, but most of them had no interest in anything that happened a yard outside the iron railings. They never read a paper, except the Nursing times, and only turned on the Common Room wireless when the nine o'clock news was safely over. They were only interested in the war as far as it affected them personally - shortage of Dettol and cotton-wool perhaps, or jam for tea only once a week.
The ward beds had earphones fitted to them, connected with a central receiving set, and while I was dusting lockers, I used to enquire about the seven o'clock news. 'Why d'you always ask if there's anything on the news?' a patient asked me one morning.
'Well, I don't know - because I'm interested, I suppose.'
'Funny,' she said, 'I shouldn't have thought a nurse would be interested.'
That summed up the attitude of the outside world towards nurses and of nurses to the outside world ...

I have a feeling that many of the nursing sisters whose names and lives have become so familiar to me were as disciplined and un-bending as any of those at 'Redwood.' I suspect that a good number might not have made very enjoyable companions. But as a 'type' they were a fundamental part of the hospitals of the time, and essential to the management and smooth-running of military hospitals during the Great War. Let the artists paint and the authors write - without the professional nurse's single-minded, rather blinkered approach, the British soldier might not have been as well served.

On to the next war

2010-08-15T19:06:00.002+01:00

As time goes by, interest seems to be increasing in the nurses who served in the Second World War as part of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Army Nursing Service. My impression is that rather more of these women got married and had families who now are seeking information about the part their relative played during that time. Service records for members of the armed forces during WW2 are still held by the Ministry of Defence, and though they can be made available with the permission of next-of-kin, it's still likely to be some time before they are released into the public domain - perhaps as long as another five years.

During a recent visit to TheNational Archives, I found some nominal rolls of nurses who went to France during the early days of WW2 as members of Q.A.I.M.N.S., its Reserve, and the Territorial Army Nursing Service, to staff British General Hospitals, Casualty Clearing Stations and Ambulance Trains. Of course, as the Germans pushed the British up to the coast and out of France during May and early June of 1940, these nurses were forced to shut up shop and retreat to the Channel ports where they were evacuated back to the United Kingdom. For the majority, this was just the start of their wartime experiences, and they were soon going overseas again to serve in North Africa, the Mediterranean, Iraq, India, Malaya, Sicily ... wherever British medical units were to be found.

I've now transcribed many of the nominal rolls, and they can be found on the Scarletfinders website. They only provide a brief snapshot, but it may prove exciting to find that your grandmother or great-aunt was one of the first British women to set foot in France following the outbreak of war.

Nominal Rolls of members of Q.A.I.M.N.S. and T.A.N.S. with the British Expeditionary Force in France, 1939 - 1940

Also on the web site are many accounts written by these women as they evacuated their casualty clearing stations and hospitals during May and June of 1940 - they can be found here:

WW2 accounts of members of Q.A.I.M.N.S. and T.A.N.S.

Scottish Women's Hospital

2010-07-28T16:05:00.003+01:00

Index of Names

I've recently transcribed and added to my website an index of women, and a few men, who served with the Scottish Women's Hospital during the Great War. It includes their role, unit, and dates of service, but no details or history of the units themselves at present - perhaps that will come later. However, there is a good deal of information about the SWH on the web, and further reading in a range of books, most available through library loan, for those wanting to find out more. The pages can be accessed here:

Scottish Women's Hospital Index of Names

Army Nursing in 1893

2010-07-10T15:00:00.003+01:00

With so few original sources available it's not easy to piece together the details of an army nurse's life prior to the Great War (and pretty difficult even then). I've recently been reading through some documents at The National Archives, and found War Office reports on the army medical and nursing services which were published in 1893 and 1901. They're reported verbatim, which really brings them to life, and an interesting picture emerges of hospital life more than a century ago. I've put some extracts on my website, and the page can be found here:

A Snapshot of the Service, 1893

Nurses' files at The National Archives

2010-06-11T10:44:00.002+01:00

The National Archives holds nearly 16,000 files for members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Force Nursing Service who served at some time during the Great War. These files cover about three-quarters of all those who served, and are held in class WO399. Recent changes at TNA have included Monday closure, and longer delivery times for original documents. Once upon a time it was unusual to wait for longer than 30 minutes for files to appear, but a couple of years ago some of the more 'lightly used' classes of documents were moved to another side of the site, to a building known to the staff as 'Q2' and this move included WO399. Since then delivery times overall have become longer and longer, and us 'Q2' people seem to be particularly hard done by.

Yesterday I waited 90 minutes for three files to arrive (three being the maximum that can be ordered at one time), and then another 90 minutes for the next three and so on. As I was checking through a dozen 'possible' files to women named 'Poole,' the potential for dying of old age before the right one arrived in the locker was pretty high. Luckily 'my' Poole came in at number five, so I'm still here to tell the tale, but after a browse around the bookshop, a cup of tea, and a wander round the grounds, I was fast running out of things to while away the time.

When I wrote to TNA a couple of months ago to ask about delivery times from Q2, I gathered from their reply that WO399 files are infrequently used throughout the year (not by me!) and with many more documents coming to TNA in the next year or two (could these be WW2 service records?) it could well be that they are one of the many classes of record that will soon be relegated to the off-site salt mines in Cheshire. That will mean that in future it might only be possible to view nurses' files by a pre-order at least three working days in advance of a visit. Pre-orders are usually limited to six individual documents, but perhaps every cloud has a silver lining - with no chance to order any more during the day I will be free of the ninety-minute waits and have more time to nip into Richmond and do some shopping!

Fraternization

2010-05-23T13:07:00.003+01:00

Returning to the theme of the alleged rules against British nurses fraternizing with members of the opposite sex (whoever they might be) it's been interesting and enlightening this week to view photographs taken by a British nurse during the war. The images have been posted to a couple of forums recently by the current owner of the album, Bob Cleary, who lives in the USA, and they give a rare insight into the lives of British trained nurses and VADs in France. What comes over is a sense of happiness and enjoyment - of course it couldn't always have been like that - but 'pleasure' shines through from distant times. And there certainly seems to be a great deal of off-duty socialising going on between the nurses and various officers and men - picnics, tennis and tea predominate.

A dictionary definition of 'fraternization' gives 'socialise, mingle, mix, consort, hobnob.'
Certainly, all of that.

The images can be viewed by following the link on this page of the Western Front Association forum:
Nurse's photo album

Leamington Spa

2010-05-15T15:43:00.004+01:00

At present I'm trying to sort out some facts and figures for a new article, which means going through some data for the five hundred nurses who joined QAIMNS between April 1902 and the Armistice in November 1918.
496 women were trained in 64 different towns and cities, and in several hundred hospitals within these towns. Almost half (224) were trained in one of thirty different hospitals in London, and the next greatest number, twenty-eight, in one of five Liverpool Hospitals. The top ten most 'popular' towns are listed below, and it can be seen that London predominated by a huge margin:

London - 224 women trained in thirty hospitals
Liverpool - 28 women trained in five hospitals
Dublin - 23 women trained in seven hospitals
Edinburgh - 20 women trained in one hospital (Edinburgh Royal Infirmary)
Glasgow - 18 women trained in three hospitals
Cambridge - 14 women trained in one hospital (Addenbrookes)
Manchester - 11 women trained in four hospitals
Leeds - 10 women trained in one hospital (Leeds General Infirmary)
Birmingham - 8 women trained in three hospitals
Leamington Spa - 8 women trained in one hospital (Warneford Hospital)

Leamington Spa? Absolutely. In a list where many large cities barely figure, and struggled to supply even half a dozen nurses for the army, Warneford Hospital, Leamington Spa, seemed to be a relative hot-house for military nurses. Bristol and Belfast, Aberdeen and Oxford, Nottingham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne were all poor runners-up to Leamington Spa. All theories on this little anomaly gratefully received!

References

2010-04-16T14:08:00.003+01:00

Recently I've been doing some research on the women who joined the Army Nursing Service between 1881 and 1902, before it was superseded by QAIMNS. They were required to be 'ladies' but the quality of their nurse training varied greatly. Alicia Barker, the daughter of a gentleman farmer from Wexford, Ireland, supplied a total of thirteen testimonials from various sources in order to prove herself acceptable to the War Office. They are listed in her files as:

The Hon. Lady Superintendent, Nursing Institution, Cork: 'most vigilant, faithful, with tact ... ladylike, clever, well-educated ... a truly valuable worker'

The Matron, South Infirmary and County Hospital, Cork

Dr. H. Borby, Professor of Midwifery, Queen's College, Cork: 'kind and gentle in her manners ... very anxious to have the instructions of the Surgeons carefully carried out'

Dr. C. R. Townsend, Senior Physician, South Infirmary, Cork: 'a first class nurse'

Dr. H. A. Townsend, Senior Surgeon, South Infirmary, Cork

Mr. J. G. Curtis,H.M. Factory Surgeon, for Cork

Dr. A. W. Sandford, Cork

Mr. P. O'Sullivan, House Surgeon, South Infirmary, Cork

The Lady Superintendent, City of Dublin Hospital: 'is an excellent nurse, most conscientious'

Mr. H. G. Croly, FRCSI, Ex-President RCSI

Dr. J. Hawtrey Benson, Examiner in Clinical Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin: 'one of our best Staff Nurses'

Mr. H. J. Broomfield, College Anatomist, RCSI

Dr. G. F. Duffey, Physician, City of Dublin Hospital

With the great and the good of Ireland's hospitals on her side could she have failed to be accepted? Of course not. Well not when she first applied in 1897, but when wanting to transfer to QAIMNS after its formation in 1903 she was initially turned down on the grounds that she was 'delicate, nervous, and otherwise not satisfactory.' But on appeal the decision was overturned, and Alicia Barker continued in QAIMNS, serving throughout the Great War, finally retiring in October 1918 at the age of 54.

Lists

2010-03-29T17:45:00.003+01:00

I really like lists - as a child I combatted boredom by reading the telephone directory and railway timetables - at least that's how I remember it now, although I do hope not too much energy was expended that way. Now when I find a list at The National Archives I have an overwhelming urge to DO SOMETHING with it. But what to do? And how useful would it be? I've recently come across a document with details of women who served as untrained nurses at The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, during the second half of the nineteenth century; and just last week I came across nominal rolls of all the members of QAIMNS, the Reserve and the TFNS who went to France with the British Expeditionary Force in the autumn of 1939, and returned after the evacuation in May 1940. Would the time and energy taken in putting these lists online be worthwhile, and for whom? The Imperial War Museum has lists of all the women who served with the Scottish Women's Hospital, with place and date of service, hidden away from all but those who visit - I have copies, but are they generally useful? Of course the ultimate lists are the Royal Red Cross Registers at The National Archives. Now becoming over-used and fragile, they need proper indexing, digitising and removing from the reading rooms, but will it ever get done? I think there are about twenty thousand entries altogether, and compiling a proper database could keep me out of trouble for at least two or three years, but would anyone ever say thank you?

The Happy Hospital

2010-03-25T19:04:00.004Z

I've just started another blog about the life of a Territorial Force general hospital during the Great War. It's based on the hospital magazine of No.3 London General Hospital, Wandsworth - the Gazette - which was probably the finest of all hospital magazines at that time. The hospital employed many men as hospital orderlies who were members of the Chelsea Arts Club, and with so much talent on offer, their journal could hardly fail. The Gazette includes articles, poetry, art, cartoons, photographs and humour, and is both entertaining and informative about every aspect of a large military hospital. How did those Chelsea Arts Club men come to be there? All will be explained in time ...

The Happy Hospital - Scenes from the Third London General Hospital Wandsworth

Uniform 1942

2010-03-07T13:06:00.007Z

As a little interval from the Great War and a step into the next war (which I seem to do increasingly these days) I came across this uniform book in a file at The National Archives, dated 1942. I wonder how many nurses looked this slim, elegant and sophisticated, as they went about their duties under the immense pressures of the Second World War? And the price of the Mess Dress is fairly mind-boggling for the time!

The Royal Red Cross and Miss Nightingale

2010-03-06T15:31:00.004Z

My main aim with my website has always been to make available transcriptions of original documents relating to military nurses, most of which are Crown Copyright documents held at The National Archives, Kew. I started doing it because I was well aware that most of this information was not easily available elsewhere, and also, in part, to cut through the mass of material on the internet about nurses which is inaccurate, poorly presented, and in some cases, just plain wrong. I really want to change the mind-set which says 'It's only nurses - anything will do - no-one will ever know the difference.' I've tried to achieve this by quiet presentation of accurate and original material, rather than direct criticism of others' work, but as old age approaches, and grumpy old woman status becomes firmly stamped on my personality, I become increasingly sensitive to the way that totally incorrect facts are replicated via the web and quickly get accepted as historical fact. During the past couple of weeks, two separate people have contacted me with queries about the award of the Royal Red Cross, and both were quite emphatic in stating that Florence Nightingale was the first awardee. As I know this to be untrue, I pointed out that it wasn't so, but one of these two assured me that they were right and I was wrong - they'd read it on the web - and the other didn't bother to reply at all. So for anyone else out there who is thinking of asking:

Florence Nightingale was NOT the first recipient of the Royal Red Cross; nor the second, third, fourth or fifth. In fact she comes in at number seven, behind a bevy of well-connected ladies, headed by the Princess of Wales (No, not THAT Princess of Wales). Hopefully Google might be kind to me in the future and pick up this posting, which could just start chipping away at the mass of hits that give the wrong answer ... before I get any grumpier ...

Mea Culpa - Godewaersvelde!

2010-02-14T10:46:00.004Z

I was in Warwick last week at the Heart of England branch of the Western Front Association, and while there was asked about nurses killed during the shelling of casualty clearing stations. By that time my brain had turned to mush, and I expressed some doubt that the one nurse buried at Godewaersvelde had died as a result of enemy action. As it's unlikely in the extreme that a nurse would die at a CCS as a result of anything other than enemy action, I was on to a loser from the start! But to put the record straight, the nurse who died was Elise Kemp, the victim of a German bombing raid. So a mention for Miss Kemp now:

Elise Kemp was born in 1882 in Wellington, New Zealand, the daughter of William Kemp a surgeon, and his wife Charlotte. By 1901 the family were living in London at 38 Alleyn Road, West Dulwich, and Elise trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill.
At the time of her death she was on temporary duty at No.37 Casualty Clearing Station, and the unit war diary of the Matron-in-Chief describes the incident:

October 21st, 1917
Went on to Godwaersvelde to 37 C.C.S. where I saw the O.C. and learnt the particulars of the very trying incident of the night before. Fortunately they had only just evacuated and they had only 30 patients in hospital, or the casualties would have been very great. There had been no warning at all beforehand and the bombs landed close to a marquee where the sister, 3 orderlies and 3 patients were killled and others were wounded, two of whom lost their arms. In another marquee the Sister in charge, Miss Devenish Meares, received multiple wounds, fortunately of not a very serious nature. She had an anaesthetic during the night and peices of shell were removed from her thigh, ankle and fore-arm, and arrangements were being made to send her to the Sick Sisters' Hospital, St. Omer. I visited her and found her wonderfully plucky. Arranged for Miss Luard, Q.A.I.M.N.S.R., to join 37 C.C.S. as Sister in charge as soon as possible. Arranged for 4 of the nurses who were very upset to be sent down to the Base.

I'll try harder next time!

Who's Who in wartime

2010-02-13T14:25:00.002Z

I've recently written a new article on the different services that together made up the British Military Nursing Services during the Great War. It explains (I hope) the difference between them, how they originated, and what happened to them at the end of the war. It's been published on the Western Front Association website, and can be found here:

British Military Nurses and the Great War - a Guide to the Services

And of course, lots more interesting stuff on the WFA website:

Western Front Association

An exceptional nurse

2010-01-29T14:38:00.004Z

Prior to the outbreak of war, members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service were considered an elite among nurses, both by themselves and others. As the numbers of nurses grew during the war, there were many members of QAIMNS Reserve and the Territorial Force Nursing Service who might not have been considered for QAIMNS pre-war, on account of some perceived deficiency in their background, education or training. But as the war progressed it became evident that some of those elite 'regulars' were not able to cope with the stress and strains of war, while some of the 'others' became admirably efficient in difficult circumstances. An entry in the war diary of the Matron-in-Chief in France and Flanders mentioned the name of one TFNS Sister as being particularly capable, and in her file at The National Archives I found one of the most glowing testimonials I'd ever seen for any nurse with wartime service. These references are usually rather measured - no going overboard with the praise - but this one certainly belonged to an exceptional woman.

'This is to certify that MISS JESSIE MAUD CARDOZO, R.R.C., has served in the TERRITORIAL FORCE NURSING SERVICE from August 17th, 1914 to May 11th, 1919, when she was demobilised.
Miss Cardozo served in France from January 1916 to January 1919. She possesses a conspicuous professional ability and administrative capacity. She is a most excellent Sister, and an experienced assistant at operations. She is good-tempered, tactful, and most reliable and punctual. She has excellent judgement and her influence is generally of a high order. Miss Cardozo is a competent Theatre Sister and was in charge of a Casualty Clearing Station in France during a time of great stress. She proved of the greatest assistance, being cool and collected at all times. She has marked powers of initiative and is a lady with a keen sense of loyalty. Miss Cardozo was mentioned in Despatches by Sir Douglas Haig in November, 1917, and in July 1919, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 1st Class, in June, 1918, for valuable work. She has rendered excellent service for almost five years.'

Sidney Browne, Matron-in-Chief, T.F.N.S., March 12th, 1920

Jessie Maud Cardozo, was born 1882 in Stratford, Essex, and trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital, London between 1905 and 1908. She died in 1965 in Eastbourne, Sussex, aged 83 years.

Demobilization - the replies

2010-01-24T12:44:00.002Z

The War Office were not slow in responding to the letter of 19th March 1919 from 'Members of Q.A.I.M.N.S.' and this reply appeared the following day:

War Office Explanation
In reference to the letter from members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve) which appeared in The Times of yesterday, complaining of the summary dismissal of nurses, a representative of The Times made inquiries at the War Office. It was stated there that urgent demands for the demobilization of nurses and doctors have been made in the Press and in Parliament, in consequence of the prevalence of the influenza epidemic. In view of these demands the demobilization of nurses has been proceeding as rapidly as possible. They have been given, it is true, only 48 hours' notice; but it is pointed out that on demobilization they are entitled to a gratuity. Their contract binds them to serve for as long as they may be required, and on signing they drew an extra £20. During their service they are treated on the footing of officers. They serve for gratuity as do officers, their gratuity being a certain amount for each year of service, and varying according to rank. Roughly, the lump sum to which a nurse is entitled on demobilization is about £40. It is understood, however, that a revision of the gratuity with a view to increasing the scale is now before the Financial Secretary. This gratuity is substituted for one month's wages and allowances, and on assessment is forwarded to the demobilized nurse.

The letter also alleges that the extra £20 added to the wages in September 1916 had to be refunded; but it is stated in reply that no nurse demobilized by the War Office was called upon to refund any sum. A further complaint is raised as to holidays. The Q.A.I.M.N.S. nurses were given leave in accordance with the Pay Warrant, this being 14 days for each six months' service, but in view of the extraordinary urgency for nurses in other than military hospitals, especially having regard to the influenza epidemic, no nurse was allowed leave just before demobilization. In other words, if the circumstances had been normal the holidays would have been normal. Comparatively few complaints have been made to Headquarters about the procedure that has been adopted in connexion with the demobilization of the nurses.

And on April 2nd this letter appeared from a former member of the Reserve, Mary Hine, seemingly satisfied with her lot:

Sir, - May I be allowed to comment on the letter re the 'scandalous' treatment of Army nurses which appeared in The Times of yesterday? I have been a member of the Territorial Force Nursing Service since 1914, and although I am well aware that the Army is competent to speak for itself, I feel it is only fair to let the general public know how well I consider we have been treated, and how little cause there is for grievance. Sisters and nurses in the Army rank as officers. They are thus, according to King's Regulations, liable to be demobilized at 24 hours' notice, and are entitled to no unemployment pay. When the armistice was signed our matron warned us that we might be mobilized any day, and advised us to look for other posts at once. Some of our members procured posts and have already been released. One has only to glance down the columns of the nursing papers to see the great demand there is for nurses. Surely some post can be accepted until something really suitable is found, to keep a homeless nurse from want. But why, after being in Army employ for so long, should there be no savings to fall back on? Comparing it with civil pay the Army pay has been good. In 1916, in consideration that we agreed to remain in the Army for as long as our services were required, an additional annual £20 was added to our salary. We have also good allowances, half-fare vouchers, and upon occasion, warrants, which in these days of expensive travelling are a great help. It has also been regular employment - another help to saving. The yearly gratuity is assured, in the case of a sister £10, and in that of a nurse £7. 10s., both of which I hear may probably be increased.
Furthermore, we joined the Army not only for a livelihood, but also from a sense of loyalty to our country, as our menfolk have done. It is a privilege not granted to all to have been allowed to serve at the front. Extra field allowance has been paid. Why then grumble at the hardships endured? The Army seems to have been a home for many homeless nurses, but, devoted and self-sacrificing as they may have been, it cannot continue to be so indefinitely, and surely nurses themselves must realize this.

A rather better explanation of the situation from Miss Hine, I think, than from the War Office!

The problems of demobilization

2010-01-22T15:24:00.003Z

It's easy to imagine that at the end of the war, after more than four years of hard work and often less than satisfactory living conditions, nurses would have been happy to hang up their hats and go home. But apparently not all of them felt this way. Correspondence in The Times in the spring of 1919 shows considerable dissatisfaction among them with the process of demobilization. First, a semi-anonymous letter to The Times, dated 19th March 1919 under the heading 'Nurses dismissed summarily:

'Sir, The members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve) would like to bring before the public the unfair way in which they are being demobilized. They are being given 48 hours' notice, and after that pay and allowances cease. Many of us have served now for four years, and, never having had proper holidays, are unfit to start work again immediately. We are a body of women working for our living, and are not in a position to be dismissed at so short notice. Many have no parents or homes, and will have to go into lodgings and pay for them. Are we not entitled to some consideration in the form of one month's wages and allowances in lieu of a month's notice? The War Office expects one month's notice from any one leaving the Service and the extra £20 added to our salaries in September, 1916, had to be refunded.'
Members of Q.A.I.M.N.S.

That was followed by a further letter to The Times dated March 27th 1919 from 'Isabel Kennedy' in Brighton - presumably one of those who was happy to be associated with the letter above.

'Sir, Mr. Winston Churchill recently stated that the demobilization of Army nurses was being pushed. It is; and the public should know of the scandalous treatment meted out to the Army nurses of the Territorial Service and the Queen Alexandra's Reserves under this same rapid demobilization. These women, to whom the country owes as much as to the soldiers, are simply given 24 hours' notice, and told to leave. A nurse never knows at what moment the blow may fall. That a woman may have neither money, nor home, nor fresh work to go to, matters nothing. At the end of the 24 hours she must go. The conduct of the Army nurses has been as heroic as that of the soldiers. To whatever hell the men went, the women followed. Yet there are scores and scores of cases of nurses who have served from the outbreak of war in 1914, who have gone through the horrors of Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, who have been torpedoed and shipwrecked, who have been bombed at casualty clearing stations, who are daily (as a nurse justly put it) being "kicked out." The Army nurses are drawn from the ranks of women who have to work for a living. But the pay of the nurse is a sweated one, so that savings, even if possible, can be but small. Yet for the Army nurse there is neither leaving gratuity nor unemployment pay. Some time in the vague future each nurse may receive a war bonus of £20. But it is surely on her discharge, when she has to face the world while waiting for a post, that the nurse needs money in her pocket, and it is then that, having done her duty, she should receive her reward. These devoted women have given the best years of their womanhood to their country. They flinched at nothing. With the soldiers they have faced all the horrors and terrors of war. They have faced death in terrible form. They have deserved as well of their country as the men. It is monstrous that they should be turned off with callous ingratitude.'

Somehow I feel that this second letter could well come under the category of 'over-egging the pudding.' Some truth in it, but what a lot of heroic exaggeration. And the replies to these accusations?
Soon, I promise.

Lucy Liptrot

2009-12-26T18:38:00.003Z

Just because somebody asked, I thought I'd mention that the rather attractive nurse currently at the top of the page goes by the wonderfully Dickensian name of Lucy Liptrot. She was born in Orrell, near Wigan, on February 21st, 1889, the daughter of a grocer, and she trained as a nurse at Hope Hospital, Pendleton. As Google is so great at picking up anything published on the blog, at least if there are any Lucy Liptrot searchers out there, she will definitely grab their attention now!

The sinking of the hospital ship "Anglia"

2009-11-26T15:53:00.005Z

Another extract from 'Reminiscent Sketches' which has provided several posts before, this time an account of life on a hospital ship plying the English Channel in 1915. It describes the sinking of the hospital ship "Anglia" when she hit a mine in the Channel in November 1915. I have a personal interest in this account, as my son-in-law's uncle, Harry Eastwick, was one of the patients on board who did not survive the sinking that day.

Harry Eastwick CWGC entry

A SISTER'S EXPERIENCE ON A HOSPITAL SHIP
Alice Meldrum, QAIMNS Reserve

Of my many and varied experiences, at a General Hospital, at numerous Casualty Clearing Stations, at a Stationary Hospital, and on board a Hospital Ship, the latter was, to me, the most interesting, as it was the most exciting experience of my life.
I was posted to the Hospital Ship "Anglia" in May, 1915, and served on board her till November 17, 1915, when she struck a mine while crossing the Channel on the way to Dover, with a complement of wounded patients, and foundered.
Work on a hospital ship varies very much according to what is going on "up the line." During the heavy fighting the ship often did two journeys a day, to and from England. As soon as we were warned to expect a convoy of patients, each sister went into her own ward, where cots were made ready, feeds prepared, hot bottles filled, and everything put in readiness for the reception and comfort of the wounded and helpless patients. The patients were usually kept on board for the day only, but occasionally they remained overnight, then it was found easier for each sister to take three hours on night duty, and thus were all in readiness for the unloading which usually took place first thing in the morning. As a general rule the patients made very bad sailors. On arrival at Dover where the ambulance train was waiting, the patients were very quickly transferred, and after a fresh supply of stores had been taken on board, the ship at once returned to Boulogne, Calais or Dieppe. On the return journey the cleaning of the wards took place, beds were remade and everything put in readiness for the next convoy.

One never-to-be-forgotten day, orders were received to prepare for a distinguished patient. Shortly afterwards the Director-General of Medical Services arrived, and informed our Matron that the King, having met with an accident up the line, was coming on board. Four orderlies were sent to the station to meet the train and the King was carried below to a small ward, which had been previously prepared and beautifully decorated with flowers. There being only a small load that day the ship soon got away. With destroyers guarding the ship on either side, and bluejackets on board to keep a lookout for mines and submarines, we all felt very important. The sea was rough but fortunately the ship reached port without mishap.

The last and very memorable journey was on November 17th. About five hundred patients had been taken on board at Boulogne, and a very happy crowd they were, fractured femurs and head-cases who had been in different hospitals in France for some months. In their anticipation of returning home, they were anxiously watching through the portholes for the first sight of the white cliffs of England, which, alas, many of them were destined never to see. About 12 noon, when some six miles from Dover, there was a tremendous crash, and iron girders, etc., came falling down like matchwood. All too quickly it was realized that the ship had either been torpedoed, or struck a mine. My first act was to fix a lifebelt on myself, feeling that I was then in a better position to help others. All sisters and orderlies did likewise, and the patients who were able to do so, were ordered to put on the lifebelts which every patient had under his pillow; the walking cases were ordered on deck. We immediately set about removing splints, for the obvious reason that if a patient with his legs in splints got into the sea, his body would go under while the splints would rise to the surface. As many patients as possible were carried on deck, and those that could, threw themselves into the sea. Others were let down into the lifeboat, but unfortunately, as the ship was sinking so rapidly, it was only possible to lower one boat. The patients kept their heads wonderfully. There was no panic whatever, and when one realizes that in the majority of cases they were suffering from fractured limbs, severe wounds and amputations, it speaks volumes for their spirit, their grit and real bravery, for they must have suffered agonies of pain. After we had satisfied ourselves that there was no possible chance of getting any more patients out, for by that time the bows had quite gone under and only the ship's stern was above water, with the propellers going at a terrific rate and blinding us with spray. We got down on to the rudder and jumped into the sea, where hundreds of patients were still struggling in the water.

It was some time before the destroyers could get out to render help, but when they did, boats were quickly lowered and the survivors taken into them. Unfortunately, in some cases, the struggling patients hung on to the sides of a boat and capsized it, and once again all were thrown into the sea. It was a never-to-be-forgotten sight to see armless and legless men struggling in the water, very many of whom were eventually saved. I personally was in the water about forty minutes before being taken on a destroyer. That would be about the time the majority were in the water. The kindness of the men on the destroyers we shall never forget, their helpfulness was beyond words. Imagine our delight, on reaching Dover, to find many of the patients lying on the Admiralty Pier; they had last been seen floating in the water, and had been picked up by other destroyers. Many were the handshakes, kindly greetings, and expressions of real thankfulness at meeting again on terra firma.

There was a humorous side to it, for we must have looked very weird in the different garments with which we had been so kindly supplied by the officers and men of the destroyers. I would remind you that forty minutes in the water in November is not the kind of sea-bathing that one would indulge in from choice, yet, largely due to the kindness of the men of the destroyer, I do not think that anyone suffered seriously from cold. After a good meal on the ambulance train we were soon on our journey to London. So ended my experience with a hospital ship.

The sinking of the H.S. "Anglia" is now a matter for the war records only, but it supplied the most exciting moment of my life as a member of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, and little as I should again like to go through the experience of being on a sinking ship, I shall always look back to my time on H.M.H.S. "Anglia" - prior to that incident - as one of the happiest I have ever spent. We were a very happy party on board and our work was always interesting, in addition to which the life was healthy. Most of the time we were at sea, and when in port we always had opportunities of going ashore for exercise, either at Boulogne or whatever port the ship put in at. The actual sinking of the ship itself pointed out to me the value of a life-belt, and the advantage of having it always at hand. In my own case, and still more so perhaps in the case of wounded patients, the majority could never have kept afloat in a cold sea for forty minutes had we not had the life-belt to support us. Another very valuable means of saving life was the bouyant deck seat, of which there were many on board. As soon as the patients below had been attended to and as many as possible taken on deck, we set about unlashing these seats and throwing them overboard. Many a man must have been saved by being picked up by the boats of the destroyers while hanging on to these floating structures. Anyone who has been to sea and spent some time in one ship will realize what we all felt when H.M.H.S. "Anglia" disappeared from view. She had been our home for many months and all felt very sad about it.

The King, who had had personal experience of the "Anglia" - and who had graciously expressed thanks for the attention received while on board - on hearing of the loss of the ship made special enquiries as to the welfare of all who had been on board at the time.

The New Cavendish Club

2009-11-17T18:07:00.003Z

When I was a student nurse in the nineteen sixties, one of my friends had a rather exciting and seemingly well-heeled aunt - Aunt Jude. One day Aunt Jude took us to have a meal at her London club - my own background was not one in which private clubs featured, and I soaked up the experience with eager interest. I might not have easily recalled that visit, but last week I was honoured to be invited to speak at a lunch held in that same club - the New Cavendish Club - to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the voluntary aid movement in the United Kingdom. The Club is immensely proud of its history, and has also recently hosted an exhibition of photos and artefacts associated with VADs and their work over the last hundred years. It's a very different age today from the one which gave birth to the Club in 1920, but I was still able to talk to women who wore their VAD badges with pride, and could look back to the Second World War and say 'I was there.' The history of the Club can be read here - a wonderful peep back into the past, and women's history, in the midst of twenty-first century London.

The History of the New Cavendish Club

VADs - One hundred years

2009-11-14T12:19:00.002Z

This year is the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the Voluntary Aid movement in the United Kingdom. On the 16th August 1909 the War Office issued its 'Scheme for the Organisation of Volunatary Aid in England and Wales' which set up both male and female detachments to fill gaps in the Territorial medical services, with a similar scheme following in Scotland in December of that year. Somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 women served as VADs during the Great War, the majority of them unpaid - probably the largest single example of voluntary service ever seen in the United Kingdom. In addition to working as nurses in almost every theatre of war, they worked as dispensers, cooks, drivers, clerks, storewomen, orderlies, waitresses and laboratory assistants.

Has their contribution been forgotten? In an age when the story of the Great War soldier has reached a level of great importance, the story of the service of women at that time has remained low-key - they continue to be seen as the 'also-rans'and often viewed as being of more use as a morale booster for the troops than as a group of skilled and hard-working women who put their own lives on hold for the good of their country. Family historians who find a VAD in their family tree are usually rather proud of them, and interested to find out what their contribution was during the war, but in general their part in the story has been written out. Last week included both the day when we 'remember' and also the announcement that nurses would, in future, need a degree to do their job. No degrees for the VADs - they were well-bred, educated women, with drive and integrity; with the resourcefulness to see what needed to be done without being told; with compassion, and an inbred ability to cope with the unexpected. I hope that today's young women who enter nurse training can put claim to the same attributes.

The missing eighty thousand

2009-10-31T12:42:00.004Z

After more than a century, the phrase 'Lies, damned lies and statistics' still rings true on many occasions today. I frequently browse search engines to see if I can find anything about military nurses that's new to the web and of interest to me, and have known for some time that there's a fundamental error on a prominent nursing website, quoting 100,000 thousand for the number of nurses who served with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Reserve during the Great War. However, a recent search shows that this error has now been replicated on numerous other sites - those which blindly copy what they find elsewhere without any effort to verify that the information is accurate, although they probably wouldn't have the first idea where to start in getting it right.
So I would like to shout out that there were never 100,000 members of QAIMNS and Reserve during the Great War, or in WW2, or for both of them added together for that matter. The National Archives holds service records for 9,349 members of QAIMNS/Reserve who served during the Great War, and another 6,640 for members of the Territorial Force Nursing Service. This run of files is not complete, as they were weeded during the 1930s and a percentage removed if the women were not able to serve again due to a variety of reasons, or if they went on to serve during the Second World War, in which case their files will still be held by the Ministry of Defence. The full number is unknown, but it's estimated that probably 20-30% more women actually served with the British military nursing services during the First World War than the run of files suggests.
Even a generous estimate pushes that number up to perhaps 13,000 members of QAIMNS/Reserve and 9,000 members of the TFNS, giving a total of about 22,000 women who served. So if you ever read that 100,000 nurses were members of QAIMNS during the war, please ignore it, and if you're really bold, drop a line to the webmaster pointing out the error.

Edith Appleton re-visited

2009-10-20T18:24:00.004+01:00

Some time ago I wrote about Sister Edith Appleton, who kept a diary throughout her time in France as a member of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, and which is now online:

Edith Appleton's diary

Wisely, in the face of such an interesting, compassionate and humorous work, BBC radio have decided to broadcast some extracts from the diary on three days during Remembrance week. The online diary is a family collaboration, and Dick Robinson, collaborator-in-chief, travelled down to Brighton for the recording of the programme, and an account of the day, and details of the programme are on his website here:

Edie makes it on to the radio

Very well done to all concerned - certainly something to look forward to.

The Diary of a Zepp. Night

2009-10-16T18:40:00.003+01:00

This account, written by a VAD, is taken from the Gazette of the 3rd London General Hospital (TF) Wandsworth, and published in the June 1916 edition. The Gazette was probably the best of all hospital magazines, due mainly to the foresight of the Commanding Officer, Colonel Bruce Porter, in employing a group of men who were all members of the Chelsea Arts Club and too old, or unfit for normal military service. In addition to their work as orderlies at the hospital, they wrote, illustrated and published a monthly magazine which resulted in one of the finest insights into life in a large military hospital during the Great War.

THE DIARY OF A ZEPP. NIGHT
9.15 - Night Sister blows in rather hurriedly. "All lights out, and just run round to the other wards." Start off on my travels, beginning by badly barking my shins on radiator. Make a frantic dive for the door and land with a resounding crash into a screen. Start once more, and eventually arrive - falling over every possible object en route. Dash upstairs and drop metal matchbox down well of staircase with a noise like several bombs. Await result in palpitating silence. Nothing happens, so "carry on."
9.45 - Suffering from shock and ready for anything. See figure silhouetted against window. Ask what it's doing out of bed, and find it's the statue that adorns the ward. Retire crushed.
10pm - Frenzied search for respirators and solution by matchlight. Wake most of the patients with the striking and singe hair and eyebrows, but success attends my efforts. All is prepared. Do your worst, O Hun!
10.15 - Obtain electric torch, and, shrouding it in kit handkerchiefs, go forth in search of adventure and, incidentally, of Night Sister. Am asked by a gentleman if I can direct him to L ward. Offer him the services of my glow-worm, and put him on the broad road that leadeth to L. The same old tale again, I suppose: cherchez la femme.
10.30 - Fire in side ward insists on blazing. Damp its ardour, but it bursts forth afresh every few minutes. On ordinary occasions to look at it is to put it out. Tonight it needs a pint of water or so every half-hour (more or less) illustrating the cussedness of things as they are.
11pm - Toast feet on radiator and search the heavens for the foe. Nothing doing.
11.30 - Still nothing doing.
12 midnight - Suspense is wearying. Decide to have supper. Cook something - bacon - by the smell thereof - make coffee, and pour three parts down the sink in the endeavour to strain it. Eat and drink in solid darkness; but all is tasteless, dust and ashes as it were. Queer what a difference sight makes to flavour.
12.15 - A tiny light comes down the ward, swaying and dancing through the blackness. Is it a fallen star or a Will o' the Wisp on his nightly travels? 'S neither, but our "Lady of the Lamp" on her midnight round. And the news she brings: "Raid in the ___ district, nothing definite." Cheering. Will they blow usup en masse or a ward at a time? Take a gloomy survey of my past, and speculate on the chances of arriving 'there' whole or in portions.
12.45 - Patrol the ward, pitying the unsuspecting patients slumbering regardless of peril!
1.30 - A not very lucid interval.
3.15 - Another visit from the Lady of the Lamp. No tidings either way. Why, oh why, did I leave my happy home and come on night duty?
4am - Dawn begins to lighten our darkness and the order "Lights out" coincides with the running of the first train to be released. It dashes through with a whoop of triumph and defiance, and I pull myself together and decide that it's not such a bad life after all.

Not All Angels

2009-10-04T15:53:00.005+01:00

Why do I get increasingly irritated by hearing women who nursed during the Great War described as 'angels'? I realise that it's been used for decades as a catch-all compliment, but surely there are far better ways of describing this group of women.

Angel - a divine or semi-divine being; a spiritual helper for humankind; a personification of the concept of holiness; a person whose actions and thoughts are consistently virtuous.

But angels don't actually exist, do they? Perhaps that depends on an individual's religous beliefs, but to me, no, they are definitely 'pretend.' But nothing 'pretend' about the women who served as nurses during the Great War. I've done a fair bit of research and looked at the life and work of hundreds of individual women who worked as military nurses and VADs, and can come up with many more suitable ways of describing them than by use of the word 'angel.'
They were hard-working, professional, responsible, strong, fit, frail, delicate, robust, nervous, lazy, sympathetic, workaholic, caring, gentle, indifferent, kindly, polite, thoughtful, hard, highly-trained, compassionate, tactless, altruistic, uncaring, intelligent, artistic, literate, rude, middle-class, working-class, loyal, trustworthy, untrustworthy, popular, unpopular, selfless, selfish, honourable .... a group of normal women.

And definitely not all angels!

Funeral of a VAD

2009-09-30T16:13:00.007+01:00

This poignant account of the funeral of a VAD in Rouen comes from 'A VAD in France' by Olive Dent. Its descriptive qualities add a sense of being there, and bring understanding of a ceremony not often available to an 'outsider.' The book does not necessarily run in chronological order, and it's therefore difficult to be sure of the identity of the woman; I first thought that it was likely to be Jeannie (Jessie) Smith Lee, who was working at No.9 General Hospital, Rouen, and died on the 30th March, 1917, but it could also refer to Mary Dickson of No.9 General Hospital who died on the 16th February 1917:

A V.A.D. Funeral

As many as possible of the nursing staff were asked to attend the funeral this afternoon of a V.A.D. When we arrived at the cemetery it was just in time to join the cortege.
A cordon of R.A.M.C. lined the road, and down it passed the padre followed by the pipers wailing a dirge. Next came the coffin, a plain, unstained wooden one covered with the Union Jack. Then came the A.D.M.S., and some other staff officers, and then we nurses - Q.A.I.M.N.S., Territorial, Reserve, St.J.A.A. and B.R.C.
We grouped ourselves round the grave, and the padre read the address exquisitely and most impressively. It was a beautiful spring afternoon with a fleckless blue sky and floods of soft sunshine. A bird on a bough swayed up and down, up and down, with a continual cheep-cheep, cheep-cheep. We all stood taut and still, at attention, and the words rolled magnificently to us:
"Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee."

The Union Jack is folded and laid aside, the pageantry and the impressive dignity of the scene loses its grip on one. Instead there comes to mind a picture of the dead girl, white and still, with closed eyes and crossed hands. We hear the rattle of ropes, the coffin is lowered, the swaying bird becomes a blurred vision. A French peasant woman with a tiny bunch of half-faded violets is sobbing loudly. The grave faces of the English nurses become a little more set.
Then come the prayers, the Last Post - poingnant and haunting - and the volley. Two French nurses drop into the grace a bunch of carnations, we take our flowers and lay them by the grave and turn to go back through the cemetery. No matter what consolation is proffered, death is always an irreparable loss. But surely better to have it come when doing work that counts, work of national and racial weight, than to live on until old and unwanted.
And what a magnificent end to one's life, to lie there among those splendidly brave boys in the little strip of land which the French Government has given over in perpetuity to our dead. Thousands of children that are to be, will come to such cemeteries, and will be hushed to reverence by the spirits of those who are not, by the spirits of the fallen that will forever inhabit the scene.
May eternal rest be given to the poor shattered body and glory eternal to the ever lasting spirit!

A V.A.D. In France, Olive Dent: published by Grant Richards Ltd., London 1917

Territorial Force Nursing Service - a summing-up

2009-09-06T12:38:00.003+01:00

I've recently added to my Scarletfinders website an account of the wartime work of the Territorial Force Nursing Service, taken from a report given by Dame Maud McCarthy in December 1920, and published in the British Journal of Nursing. In addition to that account, a less formal version was published in 'The Hospital' the following week, which is given below. In 1920 Maud McCarthy moved from her position as Matron-in-Chief of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service after a five year tenure of office, to the same position within the Territorial Force Nursing Service.

*****

THE TERRITORIAL FORCE NURSING SERVICE
From 'The Hospital' 18 December 1920, page 269

The veil of secrecy which hid the operations of the nursing sisters during the war has not yet been lifted. Lightning glimpses have come through from time to time, chiefly in the telling little narratives recounting deeds which have earned distinctions. But nothing approaching a detailed history of "Nursing in the Great War" has yet been attempted. Hence we hail with particular pleasure the all too brief report furnished by Dame Maud McCarthy, G.B.E., of her own nursing service handed in last week at a meeting of the Territorial Force Nursing Service Committee, City and County of London.
Dame Maud writes with restraint, but her pride in the service of which she is Matron-in-Chief is not entirely banished by official reserve. It was a noble band of women, ably officered, admirably chosen, rising to heights of skill and endurance unguessed at by any at the outset of war. We can remember a time when much criticism was levelled against the preliminary organisation of the Territorial Force Nursing Service. The principle of selection in advance from the major training-schools of the kingdom, on the matron's recommendation, was strongly objected to in certain quarters. How splendidly it was vindicated by the event has become manifest.

The main body of Territorial Nurses ready for service in 1914 amounted to a total of 2,738, of which the number 2,116 nurses were required for 23 general hospitals and 667 to replace casualties. This was the backbone of the Service. As years went on, the principal matrons charged with this duty enrolled 5,357 more members. The total figures are 8,140, but the actual number who served was 7,117, for always they had a large body ready to join up as required. Out of the 24 regularly organised hospitals of the Territorial Force, 10 were sent to France, 1 to Malta, 1 to Egypt, 1 to Mesopotamia, and one to East Africa. All these as well as the Home Territorial Hospitals were served by the Territorial nurses, and in addition the Service sent large reinforcements to the regular Army Nursing Service, and these were posted to casualty clearing stations, ambulance trains, and barges and hospital ships.

The total of deaths was 48, of whom 6 were killed by enemy action; the rest, including 9 who died abroad, succumbed to illness. This low death-rate for a period extending over some five years reflects the highest credit to the organising ability of the heads of the Service. It is no higher in reality than what might be expected in a normal period out of an equal number of women engaged in ordinary occupations. When the prodigious toils of the war period be considered, the difficulties of transport, the improvised nurses' quarters, the many privations and dangers of war, nothing surprises us more than to learn how few nursing sisters died in the course of their duties. Yet perhaps it is after all more surprising still to learn that only 7 out of 7,000 were dismissed as "unsuitable." The art of selection has indeed been brought to a high pitch, and the art of training also, when but one in a thousand enrolled when increasing security of nurses at home restricted choice, should have proved a failure.

Dame Maud herself is filled with an admiration at the fine qualities which manifested themselves in those under her command. They preserved under all circumstances and difficulties a very high standard of nursing. This was expected of them, and the honour of the schools was safe in their hands. But they proved equal to many quite unaccustomed tasks. They were employed in surgical teams, had charge of wards where new forms of treatment were being carried out, took over small units and field ambulances in the very forward areas, managed a hospital for the Portuguese, where they gave a fine object lesson to some astonished gentlemen in the things British women could carry through; and, in fact, distinguished themselves under the most varied and bewildering experiences.

It is not merely their ability which stirs the imagination, it is their qualities of heart, their unstinted devotion to their patients and to the sorrowing relatives which move the emotions. When we thank God for victory, and not a day should pass without thanksgiving, let us thank Him for the quality of British nurses.

Camp Kit

2009-09-05T17:18:00.003+01:00

The following list of equipment for nurses proceeding overseas is taken from the Standing Orders for the Territorial Force Nursing Service, but also applied to members of QAIMNS and the QAIMNS Reserve:

CAMP KIT FOR THOSE PROCEEDING ON ACTIVE SERVICE
The following articles are to be provided by all members when proceeding on active service abroad. Uniform only is to be taken; no plain clothes are required. An Allowance of £8. 5s. for active service equipment, and £7. 10s. for camp kit will be given to each member.

1 Trunk not to exceed 30x24x12 inches
1 Hold-all
1 Cushion with washing covers
1 Rug
1 Pair of gum boots
1 Small candle lantern
1 Small oil stove and kettle
1 Flat iron
1 Looking glass
1 Roll-up, containing knife, fork, dessert-spoon and teaspoon
1 Cup and saucer
1 Tea pot or infuser
1 Securem tent strap
2 pairs scissors
2 pairs forceps
2 clinical thermometers

CAMP KIT
1 Portable camp bedstead
1 Bag for ditto
1 Pillow
1 Waterproof sheet, 7ft x 4ft. 6ins.
1 Tripod washstand with proofed basin, bag and bath
1 Folding chair
1 Waterproof bucket [canvas]
1 Valise or kit bag with owner's name painted upon it

A nice cup of tea

2009-07-25T14:37:00.002+01:00

Looking at a list of requirements for VADs to take with them when proceeding on active service in 1916, I noticed an entry which said 'Etna Stove advisable'. I know what the usual Beatrice Stove looked like, but had never come across an Etna Stove before, and Googling took me to this piece of video on YouTube. This is, of course, a modern day self-build, but surely that 1916 version can't be so far removed. A great insight into life in a tent during the Great War!

Etna Stove

The National Archives' guides

2009-07-19T16:12:00.003+01:00

The National Archives has a whole series of research guides available online covering a wide variety of subjects from British army officers to railway workers and bankrupts and debtors - and very useful they can be. However, a recent one titled 'Looking for records of a British army nurse' carries an error duplicated from the previous guide, which could suggest a dead-end where in fact there might be hope. One paragraph reads:

The Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service was originally called the Army Nursing Service (1884-1902). No significant records of the Army Nursing Service have survived.

However, contained in WO25/3955 are service record sheets for every woman who joined the Army Nursing Service from its inception until 1891 - an extract from one is shown in my posting of 3rd May 2009 about Margaret Fellowes. Some are brief - some women stayed a very short time - but many are full and of great interest, outlining their postings, awards, and reports on their work and behaviour. The ledger stops in the middle of 1891, so any woman joining after that date will not have an entry, but for those whose service started before that date, a check of this document should prove useful. The latest TNA guide is here (but don't believe the bit about the lack of ANS records!)

The National Archives - Looking for records of a British army nurse

The Search

2009-06-06T12:11:00.003+01:00

Anne Summers' book 'Angels and Citizens: British Women as Military Nurses 1854-1914' has become my bible of army nursing prior to the Great War. First published in 1988 it is meticulously researched, clearly written, and brings together such a wealth of sources that my mind spins at the thought of ever being able to track down such a treasure trove of information. However, the difficulties must have been great. Of the women who joined the Army Nursing Service in its early days she writes:

What sort of woman joined the Army Nursing Service? The records which might answer this question are extremely scanty. Those women who lasted less than three years have, with the exception of those sponsored by the National Aid Society between 1881 and 1885, vanished without trace; so have many of those for whom no pension was awarded. Those War Office registers which exist for the pre-1902 service do not list father's occupation, place of education, or nurse training school. Some nurses appear in the nursing directories that were published in the 1890s, and some can be traced through the larger metropolitan training schools, though the information contained in their registers is often disappointingly meagre.

At present I'm putting together a database of military nurses as a long term project, which should take me into retirement, and eventually accomapany me to the residential care home (!) and I've come to realise how lucky we are today, twenty years on, to have such a wealth of information so easily available, much of it accessible without even leaving home. I can remember only too well when census returns were only available with great difficulty, and when you did find them, the thought of any sort of index or search aids was unheard of. A look at parish registers meant a long trip to some far-flung county record office, and the expense of an overnight stay, and unless you could make a very accurate guess as to where your 'target' was born or residing, it was pretty pointless leaving home in the first place.

Now I sit trying to track nurses through their lives - birth, family, school, nurse training - anything I can find. Although I'm happy to travel to archives, so much can be done sitting here at home, and it's a delight to find women appearing on my screen, at work, at home, and with their families. Recently I decided to do a search for Jane Deeble, Superintendent of Nurses at Netley from 1869. Within an hour I had found details of her birth, her marriage, and of her four children. I could follow her future husband William to Bermuda with his regiment, before meeting her there and marrying; her three sons at school, one later in the Army, and two who became doctors; her daughter Ellen growing up at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, while her mother worked, and later marrying an army officer very much her senior; and then on to Jane's retirement at her daughter's home in Looe, Cornwall, and finally her death on the Isle of Wight.

Of course these tiny snapshots only form a tiny part of the whole, but what a joy to feel a connection to these women based on rather more than just a name. Are we at the peak of available information yet? I doubt it. But I have a sinking feeling that I might run out of time before all the information is gathered!

13 Stationary Hospital Boulogne

2009-05-31T12:47:00.003+01:00

The two previous entries mention a lot about No.13 Stationary Hospital, Boulogne, and how it was opened in the autumn of 1914 in some very unpromising sugar sheds on the quay. By the greatest good fortune I've recently been sent copies of some photographs of the hospital taken soon after it opened, and one of which I attach here. The images were sent by Sheila Brownlee, whose grandmother Ruby Cockburn worked as a trained nurse with the British Red Cross Society throughout the war, and was employed at the sugar sheds from October to December 1914 while the staff was still a mixed one of QAIMNS and BRCS staff. The photo gives a wonderful view of the size and nature of the sheds, and highlights some of the difficulties that must have been encountered there - I can imagine the cold being all-consuming during the winter of 1914-15. Many thanks to Sheila for this, and the many other images she has shared with me, and also to Ruby for the prolific and varied photographs that she brought back from France.

A Hospital in France - the early days

2009-05-24T13:39:00.002+01:00

Part Two

On November 11, 1914, Lord Roberts paid the hospital a visit: he spoke to every stretcher case in hospital. The beds were very low and the men’s voices weak, but he leant over and spoke to them all; it upset him terribly to see so much suffering. Lady Aline Roberts, Lady Gordon-Lennox, and the Matron-in-Chief were with him. On November 13, we heard that Lord Roberts had been taken ill; his aide-de-camp, thinking it was only a chill, motored to the hospital for warm things. Warm clothing was sent to him with one of Queen Mary’s red flannel jackets containing a handkerchief in the pocket and with a card pinned on, “Good luck from Queen Mary.” The next day we received the sad news that he was dead. He passed away so peacefully. On the 17th a stand on the platform was draped to receive the coffin, and at the request of the patients, I placed a large cross of scarlet geraniums as their offering on top of the coffin. Men straight from the trenches were his escort – they looked so white and worn – Indian soldiers lined the platform and received the coffin on the boat which conveyed it to England.

On November 18, 1914, a number of German prisoners were brought in, some of the Prussian Guard. Great excitement prevailed the French people as the prisoners were brought from the Gare Centrale to the Gare Maritime. Some of the prisoners were slightly wounded and all were for evacuation to England by the first boat. Such great tall men they were, it quite cheered us to think they had been captured. Soon after their arrival a great scuffle was heard; a Tommy had an Iron Cross which he was showing round when one of the Prussian Guard made a grab for it and there was a rough and tumble for a moment. Fortunately, there were plenty of officers near, so that order was soon restored. Most of the prisoners who came through were quite inclined to be friendly, and there was so much exchange of buttons and badges that the authorities had to take action to stop it.

On Christmas Day, 1914, a service was held at 6 a.m. in one of the wards. A beautiful crucifix which had been presented by Queen Alexandra was used at this service. Later in the morning a present was given to each man by Lady Gordon-Lennox, she and her daughter – now Lady Titchfield – taking them round. It had been intended to give them out from a Christmas tree in the evening, but word came that there was to be an evacuation. During the afternoon a convoy of patients was received who came in time for evening and Christmas dinner. It was wonderful how happy they were – wounds and hardships all forgotten in the joy and thought of getting to “Blighty.”

The battle of Neuve Chappelle was one of our most terrible times, gas gangrene and tetanus were rampant, and the wounded streaming in all day and night. One advantage of the sheds was that the wounded were received by one door and were passed to the boats by the door opposite. How wonderful was the service of boats and trains, and with what rapidity they were despatched! I have known three different lots of men occupying the beds during the twenty-four hours. In the casualty ward, where the patients walked in, so many as three thousand were dressed and fed in a day and passed on to the boats. The hospital was well fitted-up by this time; non-commissioned officers met the patients as they arrived and drafted the walking cases to different benches, according to their degree of wound. The patients were seen immediately by the doctors, who prescribed for them, the treatment being written down by a sister; a band of nurses followed, carrying out the treatment. Then the patients were sent to long comfortable tables, where a hot meal was served, with a mug of tea. They were then passed out at the far side of the ward, decorated with “Blighty tickets,” and so on to the waiting boats.

One of the men told a thrilling story. He had been lying out for three days within range of the German guns. Our men could not get to the wounded, whose groans could be distinctly heard in the front-line trenches. At last, one Sergeant, who could not stand it any longer, got out of his trench, and boldly going to the German trench, thereby risking instant death, called out “We let you take your wounded away yesterday, will you let us take ours today” The German officer answered, “Yes.” The Sergeant then went back and called for volunteers, who carried the wounded men over to the British lines. No shots were fired, but as they were on their way a German officer halted them; they called out, “British wounded.” The officer replied, “Pass on, good night.” It was quite a cheery little story in the midst of the horrors.

In September, 1915, the sheds were taken over by the Army Post Office and the hospital moved to huts on the road leading to Wimereux. For a great many reasons we were sorry to move; it had been a wonderful year on the docks, where we were in the very heart of things. In spite of all the sad memory of great battles – Ypres, Messines, Vimy Ridge – with the thousands of casualties and the endless stream of wounded, there had been much that was beautiful in the heroism displayed in suffering; in the devotion of nurses and willing volunteer helpers. Very wonderful and soul-stirring had been the sight of thousands of troops coming from England daily to be drafted to the front; not to speak of the thousands daily going on leave. It made on proud to be British.

A Hospital in France - the early days

2009-05-21T14:11:00.004+01:00

This extract is another from 'Reminiscent Sketches' (John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1922), and is an account of a British military hospital in the early days of the war, when the future was uncertain, and medical staff were facing challenges they had never met before. Adelaide Walker was one of the most experienced members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service serving in France at the time. She was born in 1872, the daughter of a doctor, and trained as a nurse at Meath Hospital, Dublin. She served in South Africa during the Boer War, first as a member of the Army Nursing Service Reserve, and from April 1901 as a member of the Army Nursing Service proper, later transferring to QAIMNS after its formation in 1902.

EXPERIENCES AT A BASE HOSPITAL IN FRANCE, 1914-1915
by A. L. WALKER

Part One

My first experience at a Base hospital was at Versailles in August, 1914. The hotel “Trianon Palace” had been converted into a hospital. The rooms (which in 1919 were used for the compiling of the peace terms) were full of terribly wounded men, dying of gas gangrene and tetanus.
I was one of a party of nurses returning from St. Nazaire, where we had been sent during the retreat from Mons. We were awaiting orders at the “Reservoir Hotel,” and preparing to go to bed, when a message came from the matron of a hospital, asking us to go and help. A large convoy of wounded were coming in, and every bed was full. The ambulances were streaming along as we made our way to the “Trianon Palace” hotel. It was a curious sight – almost unbelievable – the brightly lighted hall, scarlet carpeted stairs (there had been no time to remove the carpets), stretcher after stretcher being carried in with wounded men caked in mud and blood, some of whom had lain out for days before they could be got at. Beautiful bedrooms were filled with hospital beds, all occupied, and in the spaces between the beds were men lying on stretchers, even in the corridors, and everywhere where there was room. What a night it was! Had we only stopped to think, the work would have seemed hopeless. It was no easy matter to get their dried, caked clothes cut off, and the men washed and fed – a drink being all that the majority were able to take. Poor things! How splendid and amazing they were! Not a grumble from one of them: but when a nurse would be going for a drink for some of them, all the hands would be stretched out, “Bring me one, too, nurse.” Not a word as long as they saw that you were busy. Their wonderful patience and unselfishness never ceased to amaze one. At 4 a.m. matron sent us to bed; orders for us to proceed to Boulogne the next day had been received.

We arrived at Boulogne on October 30, 1914. The place gave us the impression of being a seething mass of ambulances, wounded men, doctors and nurses: there seemed to be an unending stream of each of them. All the hotels were hospitals, which gave one a horrid feeling of disaster. No one of whom we inquired could direct us to where No.14 Stationary hospital (to which we had to report) was situated; eventually we met a matron who was able to direct us. It was a pouring wet night, and we drove up the hill from Boulogne to Wimereux in funny little “Victorias” with a kind of leather apron over our heads. An endless stream of ambulances was slowly making its way in the same direction.
Number 14 Stationary hospital was found to be in a large hotel on the sea-front at Wimereux. The Officer Commanding was in the hall receiving patients: he directed us to the top floor, where the nurses had their quarters. Every place was packed with sick and wounded lying on the floor; you stepped between them, and over them, to get along. As soon as we could get into our indoor uniform we went straight into the wards. I relieved the matron in the theatre, where she was busily working. Operations went on unceasingly. As fast as one patient could be taken off the operating table, another was placed on – and so on all through the night: the surgeons had been at it the whole day. As I went to bed in the morning I met the orderlies carrying patients down the stairs for evacuation by boat to England, while the doctors were helping to carry in another convoy which had just arrived. We rested until midday, then went to relieve other nurses who had not yet had a rest. Reveille was being sounded the following morning as I got into bed. At 7 a.m. I was awakened by the secretary of the matron-in-chief, who had to shake me pretty hard. She calmly informed me that the matron-in-chief’s car was at the door, and that I was to proceed at once to a hospital in the town. She made a cup of tea while I dressed, then I drove down to the docks.

The sugar sheds on the Gare Maritime were to be converted into a hospital, No.13 Stationary hospital. What an indescribably scene! In the first huge shed there were hundreds of wounded walking cases (as long as a man could crawl he had to be a walking case). All were caked with mud, in torn clothes, hardly any caps, and with blood-stained bandages arms, hands, and legs; many were lying asleep on the straw that had been left in the hastily cleaned sheds, looking weary to death; others sitting on empty boxes or barrels, eating the contents of a tin of “Maconochie” with the help of a clasp knife. Dressings were being carried out on improvised tables; blood-stained clothes, caked in mud, which had been cut off, were stacked in heaps with rifles and ammunition. Further on, the sheds were being converted into wards; wooden partitions were being run up, bedsteads carried in, the wounded meanwhile lying about on straw or stretchers. The beds were for stretcher cases, and were soon filled with terribly wounded men, who had just to be put into the beds as they were, clothes and all. As fast as one could get to them the clothes were cut off, the patient washed and his wounds dressed. Some had both legs off, some their side blown away – all were wounded in several places. Doctors and nurses were hopelessly outnumbered, distractedly endeavouring to meet the demands made upon them. Here too we found the Matron-in-Chief with the Expeditionary Force in France (Dame Maud McCarthy) helping and directing. Under her supervision a miraculous change soon took place; reinforcements of nurses began to arrive, and the sheds took on the appearance of a well ordered hospital.

We were greatly assisted by Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox, who placed unlimited funds at our disposal, thereby making it possible for everything to be done. Soon red quilts on the beds, and red screens and large bowls of flowers, took away all the gruesomeness. The flowers were the gift of Lord Lonsdale, who sent them to this hospital throughout the war. He was in the wards one day and saw what pleasure it gave a patient – who was a gardener in peace time – to receive a bunch of flowers; and how tears came into the patient’s eyes when he saw the flowers; and although he was dying how eagerly he grasped them. Lord Lonsdale was greatly touched, and promised that if he could manage it, the hospital should always have flowers. Two days later a large box of exquisite flowers arrived from Bond Street, and flowers never failed to come twice a week afterwards.

Camiers revisited (but not by me)

2009-05-04T14:34:00.003+01:00

Some time ago now I wrote about a visit I made to Camiers, south of Boulogne, to the site of some Great War Hospitals, now long gone. I added photos of the area today; bare and unexciting, and surely waiting for some future development - the old post from September 2007 is here:

Etaples and Camiers

Recently I came across some contemporary images of 20 General Hospital, Camiers on Flickr, and I thought it might be useful to see what the hospital was like during the Great War. Hospital photos of the time are rare, and these give a great idea of what the buildings, and site in general were like. Follow the link below - the Camiers photos are with other modern images, but easy to browse and tell what's what.

Maud Kealey's photos of 20 General Hospital, Camiers

It's so hard to look at the site today and believe what was going on there ninety years ago.

One of the Intrepid Band

2009-05-03T10:50:00.005+01:00

I'm not sure what people imagine a 'military nurse' was like. At present I'm starting a database of nurses, and trying to find out more about the lives and families of some of those who served at any time after 1870. Already I've come across some very ordinary women, and also a number of rather remarkable ones, often with family histories that I would love to be part of myself, rather than my own long line of agricultrual labourers and gypsies. On my list of members of the Army Nursing Service [pre-1903] was the name 'Fellowes, M. A.', and a note next to her entry in the Royal Red Cross Register led me on to her obituary in The Times, and to some further family information. She was born Margaret Augusta Kirkland, in Rothesay, Bute, in 1845, the daughter of General John Vesey Kirkland and Susan (née Paterson). She died on the 29th September 1931, and the following obituary appeared in The Times on Monday 5th October 1931. Just to add that her second husband Sir George Makins was consulting surgeon to the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders between 1914-17, and held the honorary title of Surgeon-General - he survived his wife by two years, dying on 2nd November 1933.

LADY MAKINS
A NIGHTINGALE NURSE

Lady Makins, whose death was announced in The Times last week, was a link with Florence Nightingale, under whose supervision she received her training as a nurse. Endowed with much natural ability and great energy combined with exceeding grace of manner and sweetness of temperament, she had every opportunity, by wide travel, of enlarging her sympathies, increasing her knowledge of life and social conditions, and acquiring that poise and self-confidence that make for leadership. From early years she accompanied her father, General Vesey Kirkland, wherever he was engaged in military service, and was with him in Canada and South Africa. Later on, as the wife of General Fellowes, she resided in South Africa, the West Indies, and Ireland, and was a prominent figure in the social life which surrounds the holders of high military appointments. She was a bold cross-country rider to hounds, a fearless climber of great peaks, and enjoyed all the activities of country life.

After the death of General Fellowes in 1879, her desire turned to sick nursing, and in January 1880, she entered the Nightingale Training School, founded in 1860 by Miss Florence Nightingale at St. Thomas's Hospital, where Mrs. Wardroper, in her position of matron, had already instituted many nursing reforms. Miss Nightingale speedily recognized Mrs. Fellowes's outstanding nursing qualities and powers of leadership, and followed her training with close interest. Thus it was that after the intensive course of one year's training, Miss Nightingale deemed her fit to nurse at the seat of war, and selected her to accompany Sir Frederick Roberts's force to the Transvaal in February 1881, herself arranging all the details of travel and equipment with the utmost solicitude, even commending her to the personal care of General Roberts. In her parting letter, Miss Nightingale called her “My dear Cape of Good Hope,” a term she constantly repeated in subsequent letters.

On Mrs. Fellowes's return to England in June, 1881, she was appointed Sister-in-Charge of Leopold ward at St. Thomas's Hospital, but again her services were required for the troops, and in August, 1882, she was seconded to serve in the Egyptian War. Her offer of service was accepted by Sir Garnet Wolseley himself in a personal letter. Daily correspondence passed between Miss Nightingale and Mrs. Fellowes during the brief period of preparation, and frequent letters of counsel and encouragement reached her at the seat of war. In more than one letter Miss Nightingale wrote of her cherished hope that Mrs. Fellowes would devote her life to Army Nursing and to its reform, deeming her particularly suited for such a task. In March, 1883, Mrs. Fellowes was again back at her post in St. Thomas's Hospital. In 1884 she was among the first to receive from Queen Victoria the decoration of the Royal Red Cross, which had been instituted the year before.

In December, 1884, Mrs. Fellowes left St. Thomas's Hospital on her marriage to Sir George (then Mr.) Makins, the eminent surgeon, and her nursing career seemed ended. But she went again on active service in the South African War which broke out in 1899, and in which her ripe experience proved of much value. Though somewhat advanced in years at the outbreak of the Great War, Lady Makins devoted herself once more to hospital work, and was in charge of the Hospital for Facial Injuries in Park-lane, while she also did valuable service for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Family Fund and for the Red Cross. During peace time Lady Makins was constantly occupied in social work. She was actively interested in the Banstead Children's Home; she was almoner for the Charity Organization Society at Hoxton even as late as two years ago; and in her own parish she was district visitor and school manager. She retained to the last a lively interest in her training school, and no celebration there was complete without her presence. Her widespread sympathies and varied fields of activity made her known and loved by people of all classes, and those who had the privilege of her friendship will preserve an abiding memory of a gracious lady, who shared in her husband's interests and career to the very last.

*****

And here is Margaret Fellowes' service record sheet from The National Archives:

'Flu

2009-05-01T11:15:00.006+01:00

It seems to be impossible to blink at present without someone, somewhere, mentioning 'Swine 'Flu', and that often leads on to talk of the pandemic of 1918, and the millions of deaths which followed. One recent report put forward the idea that it attacked fit young people because having a strong immune system actually puts you at more risk of complications and death - presumably on the 'stronger they come, the harder they fall' principle. I don't subscribe to this view myself, but it did get me looking at casualty figures for nurses during 1917 and 1918.

In relation to the nurses working with the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, I have daily figures for the total number of nurses officially off work due to illness or injury for the entire period from March 1917 onwards. A War Office paper of the time suggests that a 'normal' sick rate for nursing staff on active service should fall somewhere between a low of 2% of establishment during quiet summer months, and a high of 5% during times of outbreaks of severe illness or epidemic. Although I have chosen not to spend too much time with my calculator for fear of insanity, the sick rate during the two years from March 1917 to March 1919 for all nurses working with the BEF in France and Flanders fits into the pattern exactly, from a low of 2.01% in July 1917 to a high of 4.18% in November 1918. Although the daily sickness rate for the winter of 1918 and spring of 1919 [when the influenza epidemic was at its height] are slightly increased from the same period the previous year, there seems to be no sign that the nursing staff were unduly affected by the epidemic in the same way as were the soldiers and the general population. Certainly there were some deaths, but again, in France and Flanders these formed a very small number relative to the size of the nursing establishment. Considering that the women were caring for thousands of men suffering from 'Spanish 'flu', giving the most personal care day and night and having the closest possible contact with them, it almost seems that most of them were invincible! During November 1918, out of a total nursing staff of 8,072, five women died from pneumonia or 'flu related illness, giving a death rate for the month of 0.06%, and in February 1919, the second worse month for deaths, the rate was 0.03%.

So why were the nurses so unaffected? All I can suggest is that the trained nurses among them [the majority] had spent many years nursing infectious cases in an age where there were no antibiotics, and had developed massive immunity from meeting other similar viruses in the past. If they had succumbed previously, most would either be dead, disabled or immune, and their presence in France suggests the latter - they had received immunity from meeting a variety of viruses previously which either prevented or ameliorated this latest illness. In view of today's problems it makes me grateful to have spent a lifetime as a nurse!

[The figures above are taken entirely from statistics for France and Flanders, and do not necessarily reflect a simliar situation in the UK at the same time]

A Portrait of a Nursing Sister

2009-04-24T14:14:00.004+01:00

While looking through nurses' files at The National Archives, I came across a member of the regular QAIMNS who died in service between the wars. Born in 1891, she had worked as a VAD for most of the Great War, eventually training as a nurse at King's College Hospital from 1918 to 1921 before joining Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse in 1923. While working in Egypt in 1933, by then a Sister, she contracted influenza from a patient and died of pneumonia. In her file is a list of effects returned to her family after her death. I've come across these sad lists before, but this one was probably the longest I've seen, running over four closely-typed pages, and amounting to several hundred items. What strikes me is how vivid a picture these things paint of the life of a member of the nursing service overseas at that time - her clothes, her hobbies, her off-duty time and a little of her personality - a woman who was the owner of a riding habit, a toasting fork, a Yo-Yo, and even one pair of red knickers! So here are just of a few of the personal belongings of a Nursing Sister of the time - a trip back to the past.

Riding habit
Riding boots
Tennis racket and press
Tennis eye shade
Badminton racket
Tennis dresses (5)
Fishing net
Thermos flask
Gramophone and 30 records
Contract Bridge and Auction Bridge scorers
Bridge pencils (4)
Bridge pencils, ornamental
Books, novels (8)
Golf clubs and bag
Ticket for the Irish Grand National Sweepstake
Parasols (3)
Coats (5)
Silk dresses (4)
Short silk coats (2)
Dresses, fancy (2)
Black lace dress
Black evening dress
Shoes (12 pairs)
Necklaces, bracelets - a dozen or so, assorted
Underwear - dozens of items; night-dresses, bodices, vests, camisoles, stockings, corsets, knickers, dressing-gowns
Purse bags (6)
Cigarette cases (3)
Cigarette lighters (2)
Green and yellow cigarette holders in cases
Brass cigarette box
9ct. gold wrist watch
Ingersoll watch
Camera
Sketch book and pencils
Sewing materials
Knitting needles, assorted
Evening dress, half-finished (Blue Crepe-de-Chine)
Pink wool bed-jacket, half made
Ivory napkin ring
Toasting fork
Yo-Yo
Hair Waver
Electric heater with transformer and flex
Dolls (2)
Dolls' seat
Chinese box

North Russia 1918-19

2009-04-05T12:41:00.003+01:00

This is a further extract from the book 'Reminiscent Sketches,' a series of first-hand accounts written by members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and published in 1922. The events that took British troops to North Russia just as the Armistice was approaching are relatively unknown, but this descriptive account by Matron Helena Hartigan gives a real flavour of life in Archangel at the time, and in places puts a rather attractive slant on what was surely a difficult and unpleasant experience for the soldiers. Helena Hartigan, born in 1878, trained as a nurse at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, before joining QAIMNS in 1905. Prior to leaving for North Russia she had spent four years on the Western Front in charge of British General Hospitals.

NORTH RUSSIA by H. HARTIGAN

During 1917 and 1918 the Hospital ship “Kalyan” – P. and O. intermediate – ran between England, Egypt and Salonika. She had accommodation for about nine hundred patients. In October, 1918, the “Kalyan” was detailed for duty in North Russia. A ship equipped for the near East run does not easily adapt itself to an arctic winter. Extensive alterations were necessary. Inner wooden walls about three inches from the ship's side were built, the intervening space being filled with sawdust; glass roofs were covered with asbestos mats; radiators were installed, the midships was roofed in and the water pipes wrapped in asbestos.

The ship was still in the hands of the painters when the nursing staff, a total of fourteen, joined the ship at Cardiff. All were delighted at the prospect of this new adventure. Neither the ship's officers nor the medical officers were equally sanguine. The blue Mediterranean was to them more alluring than the cold north. When the Lascars had been replaced by a white crew and the ship provisioned, we were ready to start. The Marchioness of Bute visited the ship just before sailing, and was most interested in the hospital wards, operating theatre and X-ray room. The wards were extremely well equipped, and, thanks to the courtesy of the captain of the ship, the bullion room was lined with shelves and made a Red Cross store, which defied rats. A special arctic kit was issued to troops bound for North Russia, and, with the exception of the boots, the sisters' kit was similar to that of the men. Leather jerkins, windproof linen coats lined with sheepskin, cloth caps with fur peaks and earpieces, and serge gloves. The boots supplied later to the sisters were high felt boots to the knee, like those worn by the Russian peasants; they looked extremely clumsy, but were beautifully warm and quite proof against frost bite, even with a temperature 35° below zero.

The voyage to Archangel took about twelve days, and as we went North, each day grew shorter. After passing the North Cape a whale was sighted and about the same time we had our first view of the “Northern Lights.” That moving celestial curtain, varying from deep purple to pink, yellow, or green, was a beautiful sight. As the ship approached Archangel I was struck by the flatness of the Russian coastline. On either side of the narrow channel which leads to the port, were many sawmills bearing the name of British firms. The town appeared to have numerous churches, easily distinguishable by their domes – of which each Greek church has five – and the Cathedral with its gilded spire was a landmark. The “Kalyan” was moored to the quay where she was to remain for eight months, under the protecting guns of the French cruiser which was anchored in the middle of the Dwina. My first impression of Archangel was chiefly one of fur-clothed Russians and ill-smelling streets, wonderful churches with still more wonderful choirs.

A British Stationary hospital was fully occupied ashore when we arrived and a new Russian building was being adapted for a General hospital, while a casualty clearing station was busy on the other side of the river Dwina. There were several medical units up the line on both the river front and the railway front. It was not considered advisable that British sisters should work in the hospitals ashore, so a certain number of ladies of the Russian Red Cross were employed at each of these units. Some of these ladies, a large number of whom spoke French, (at a later date) were most kind in showing us round the fur stores, etc., in the town. Sick and wounded were brought to the “Kalyan” by barge. After weeks in billets and blockhouses the sick found the ship luxurious. Hot water, electric light and clean linen was a joy after the evil-smelling and dark billets with no mails, no literature, and no cigarettes. It was a hard campaign for the men. Old newspapers dated the day the “Kalyan” left England were eagerly read. Beside British officers and men of the Navy and Army we had Americans, French, Italians, Chinese and a few Russians. The small cots on board were not ideal for surgical cases, there was not sufficient room for the splints, etc. A surgeon specialist from the Stationary hospital ashore carried out the operations.

Archangel was a couple of hundred miles from the fighting line. Transport difficulties were many, particularly the transport of sick, the different seasons requiring different methods of transport. With the severe frost the whole scene changed; the Dwina became frozen in a night. Snow fell; very fine dry snow; and the whole country wore its winter mantle of of white; it was a charming sight. The silver birches along the river banks – which like the ground were covered with snow – made a wonderful picture. Within a week trains and railway lines were laid on the now solid river, and sleighs drawn by shaggy ponies brought the merchandise across the river, where previously the boats had been busy. Patients arrived by sleigh in what they themselves called “coffins.” Many hundred versts had often to be traversed by the sick and wounded before reaching the base. Wrapped in fur-lined sleeping bags, and halting for food and change of horses at medical aid posts, the men found the open sleigh, well padded with hay, fairly comfortable. A certain number of orderlies from the sore hospitals came on board in relays for practical instruction in nursing. This was found more satisfactory than theoretical instruction given by the sisters from the ship at the hospitals weekly. Ventilation of wards on board was a great difficulty. With hot water circulating in pipes, should a port hole be opened only for even a few minutes it meant a burst radiator, and dire distress of the chief engineer. With the thermometer outside registering anything between freezing point and 35° below – on two occasions even lower still if I remember rightly – the wards were often exhaustingly warm, the cabins still worse. Some of the medical cases found the heat very trying, but in spite of this discomfort they did well.

No fresh fruit or vegetables were procurable; germinated peas and beans were served to all on board each alternate day. A further precaution against scurvy was the daily issue of 2oz. of lime juice per head. The roubles being valueless, the purchasing power of money was practically nil. A limited number of eggs were obtained for patients in exchange for rice, etc. “Rahchick,” a small Russian bird, and ptarmigan were procured in a like manner. Although scurvy was prevalent among the Russian peasants and troops, there were but few cases among our troops, and those cases quickly responded to treatment in hospital. The cases of frost-bite were chiefly due to negligence on the part of the men themselves. Ears were most easily touched if the fur ear-pieces of the caps were not always worn down. Some very bad cases of frost-bite were among the French. A party lost themselves in a wood after a Bolshevik attack; the snow got above their boots, with the result in many cases of amputation of both feet. During the dark winter months – only a few hours' daylight – it was difficult for convalescent patients and the staff to take exercise. Decks were too slippery to walk on and were of course covered in. Skis were supplied, but the flatness of the country make ski-ing impossible. Walking either on or by the river was popular and skating was favoured by some. Unfortunately the one rink within easy distance was small and reserved on two or three days a week for hockey. The local market with its fish frozen into grotesque shapes was always interesting. Bridge, sewing and knitting filled up our spare time; there was also a library. A sewing machine, thoughtfully procured from the Red Cross by the Matron-in-Chief was invaluable for personal and hospital use.

In addition to the Commodore and General Officer Commanding, the ship had many distinguished visitors of various nationalities, including the French Ambassador, the Russian General Officer Commanding and the late Sir Ernest Shackleton. The arrival of a mail was a great event – were were sometimes six weeks without one – the mail came by dog sleigh across the White Sea, and wireless gave us what news we had, including the news of the Armistice. As our troops were still fighting and saw no hope of cessation, there was little enthusiasm on the news of the Armistice reaching us. Archangel was icebound and would remain so until May or June. The French were particularly restive; what wonder when some had had no news from their homes since 1914! The shops in Archangel were interesting to look at. On the outside walls were painted the goods on sale within; probably for the benefit of the many unable to read. The reindeer, as they trotted along the river four abreast, drawing tiny sleighs driven by fur-clothed Laplanders, were most picturesque.

About March the days commenced to lengthen – unfortunately I have no diary to which I can refer – and by May there was practically no night; the skies were beautiful just then and the snow reflected the same wonderful colouring. By degrees perpetual sun melted the snow and very quickly forced the silver birches into full leaf. Unfortunately it also liberated the odours which the snow had mercifully corked! Icebreakers cut a way through the ice for the troopships bringing reliefs to enter Archangel. Within a week, part of the original North Russian “Elope” Force sailed for England. The “Kalyan” well laden returned at the same time and arrived at Leith early in June, 1919.

Great Military Hospitals 1902

2009-03-15T14:51:00.004Z

Regular inspections of military hospitals had always been carried out, but at the time of the formation of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service in 1902, both the Surgeon-General and the Matron-in-Chief QAIMNS made visits to all large military hospitals to check how the new nursing scheme was working, and to report on any improvements that needed to be made. An increased number of nursing sisters meant that they could be deployed in more hospitals, and take a larger part in the administration of the hospital and in the training of orderlies of the Royal Army Nursing Corps, which was not a universally popular 'improvement'. These reports, all from 1902-3, survive at The National Archives, and I've recently added those for the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, and The Herbert Hospital, Woolwich, and the Cambridge Hospital Aldershot to the Scarletfinders website, and they can be found via these links:

Royal Victoria Hospital Netley

The Herbert Hospital Woolwich

Cambridge Hospital Aldershot

I've already transcribed many of these hospital reports, which total almost one hundred, but the majority are for smaller barrack hospitals which never employed female nursing staff. Some of these small military 'hospitals' were truly awful, but a prize for one of the worst must go to Burnley:

This hospital had been closed about a week before our visit. It was in a most deplorable condition of filth and neglect, and was quite unfit for habitation. The non-commissioned officer in charge was, at the time of our visit, under arrest, and the equipment was removed. If this hospital is ever to be reopened, much will require to be done to make it suitable for sick soldiers. In fact the whole barracks presented a picture of the most abject squalor, and the sight of them must have a strongly deterrent effect upon any man in Burnley who might think of enlisting. They were really disgraceful.

There have been a lot of complaints recently about the treatment of soldiers in hospital today, but thank goodness things have got a bit better in the last hundred years!

Nurses and War - some books

2009-03-13T08:23:00.003Z

I have a booklist on my main Scarletfinders website, but the intricacies of the web somehow result in this blog getting far more search engine hits than my main website. So for anyone searching for some reading material I've repeated some of my favourites from that list here, with additional comments on some of the books.

Military Nursing

Angels and Citizens - British Women as Military Nurses 1854-1914; Anne Summers; Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1988. One of the foundation pieces of writing about military nurses, and essential to the understanding of all that came after

One Hundred Years of Army Nursing; Ian Hay [Sir John Hay Beith] Cassell and Co., 1953. A broad history of the service, the 'hundred years' covering 1853-1953, which is a different hundred to the next book:

Sub Cruce Candida - A Celebration of One Hundred Years of Army Nursing 1902-2002; QARANC Association 2002. This more modern history is based on a photographic archive, showing nurses of QAIMNS, QARANC and the Territorial Army throughout the world, though with particular emphasis on two world wars. It was never published in great numbers and difficult to get hold of now.

Working for Victory? - Images of Women of the First World War 1914-1918; Diana Condell and Jean Liddiard; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. A wonderful collection of captioned images, many from the Imperial War Museum photographic archive, which show women at work during the Great War, civilians, nurses, munition workers, women's army - a bit of everything and excellent for uniform identification.

The Roses of No Man's Land; Lyn Macdonald; Michael Joseph Ltd., 1980. Over many years this book had become the most frequently read [and quoted] account of nursing during the Great War, although perhaps because of the track record of the author and the absence of competitors. My own feeling is that it says much about the Great War, and little about the actual lives and working conditions of the nurses, relying heavily on a few primary sources and concentrating on the untrained VAD rather than the professional nurse. Definitely a book written by a non-nurse for non-nurses to read!

Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps; Juliet Piggott; Famous Regiments Series, Leo Cooper Ltd, 1975. This book covers army nursing from 1642 to 1973 in 103 pages, so a very brief flip-through, but very useful if that's what you're looking for!

More to come.

Dancing

2009-02-08T12:57:00.005Z

There was a good deal of dissatisfaction during the Great War, particularly by Canadian and American nurses working in France, that dancing was forbidden to members of the nursing services, either in their own, or in Officers' Messes. There seemed to be little lack of understanding as to why this rule was in place, and what its advantages were, but it was frequently held up as an example of the petty bureaucratic practices which were seen to be in place only to restrict nurses' enjoyment while on active service overseas. Maud McCarthy, Matron-in-Chief with the British Expeditionary Force in France, often pointed out that this was not her rule, but had been in force for many years after discussions between the War Office and the Nursing Board. She firmly believed that nurses should not lose sight of their purpose in France - that of caring for the wounded - and it would not help the morale of the soldiers to hear talk of dances and gaiety while they lay wounded and in pain.
So to put the record straight, I've found the source of the rule, and the action that followed. It started with a question in the House of Commons, put by Mr Athelstan Rendall, MP for Thornbury, Gloucestershire, to Richard Haldane on November 1st, 1906:

Mr. Rendall: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will explain why nurses at Netley Hospital, and in the Army's service generally, are not permitted when off duty, except when on furlough, to take part in public or private dances, seeing that the prohibition does not apply to medical men in the same hospitals; whether a highly trained professional class, such as nurses, are to be placed in a different position on the ground of sex to officers in the Army, who, provided they are on duty at the appointed time have no restrictions placed on their use of time when off duty; and whether he will at once free the nurses from this interference with their liberty.

Mr. Haldane: I have consulted the Nursing Board which contains among its members many ladies of great experience in these matters, and they have advised to the following effect: 'The Nursing Board requires for Her Majesty's Nursing Service gentlewomen who are devoted first and foremost to their work for its own sake and the sake of their patients, and who will, therefore, desire to live quietly and unostentatiously without looking for much gaiety. Occasional attendance at operas, theatres, concerts, and other places of amusement is not incompatible with the due performance of their duties, and is allowed at discretion of the matron; but the late hours involved by attendance at balls and dances, in the opinion of the Board, incapacitates them from giving proper attention to their patients on the following day.

At a meeting a few days later, the Nursing Board discussed the rule and Sydney Holland moved that the Board should adhere to it, saying:

The main reason for the decision was that the late hours involved by attendance at balls and dances incapacitate Nurses for the due performance of their duties on the following day. If further reason is required it may be stated that the Nursing Board requires for Her Majesty's Nursing Service gentlewomen who are devoted first and foremost to their work for its owon sake and the sake of their patients, and who are content to live quietly and unostentatiously without craving for gaiety and excitement.

'It was therefore proposed by Mr Holland, seconded by Lady Roberts, that the Board adhere to the opinion expressed in the above quoted minute. Miss Stewart moved as an amendment that nurses in Military Hospitals should, in special cases, be permitted to attend dances under the strict supervision of the Matron, and provided that they return to their quarters by 12 o'clock midnight. The amendment was not seconded, but was put to the vote and rejected. Mr. Holland's proposal was then put to the vote and carried as a resolution of the Board.'

In All Those Lines

2009-01-25T14:28:00.002Z

Some months ago I was sent a copy of this book to read. It is based on the diaries of Elsie Tranter, a member of the Australian Army Nursing Service, who worked in a variety of hospitals in France during the Great War. The original of the diary is held at the State Library of Victoria, and it's been dusted off, edited and published by Jennifer Gillings and Julieanne Richards. And what a worthwhile job they've made of it.
Unlike some similar memoirs, it's not simply a catalogue of wounded, dead and dying; of hardship and despair. Elsie Tranter makes her wartime journey very much more interesting than that, giving accounts of the places she visits on her travels, and a great deal of information about her life in general and her leisure time, well-balanced with stories of the soldiers she cares for and her life as a professional woman in wartime. There are many tiny incidents included which give insights into a nurse's life in France not normally found elsewhere, and which make this a unique account of that time. It also demonstrates that nurses with an adventurous spirit could find all sorts of ways to bypass certain rules, regulations and restrictions which were rife in France. She spends a good deal of time catching midnight trains and hitching lifts on lorries to visit places she should not really have been in. It's definitely the story of an Australian!

'In All Those Lines - the diary of Sister Elsie Tranter 1916-1919'
Edited by J. M. Gillings and J. Richards and published by the editors, 2008: ISBN:9780646495590

Honours and Mentions

2009-01-11T09:24:00.002Z

Several times recently people have contacted me to say that I've failed to include their relative in a list of awards of the Royal Red Cross that I have on the Scarletfinders web site. Initially I found this a bit puzzling as I don't have any details of RRCs on there, but eventually the penny dropped. I recently put up a couple of pages on awards of the Military Medal to members of QAIMNS and the Territorial Force Nursing Service, and that seems to have caused some confusion in people's minds between the two. I wrote a fair bit about Military Medals here in October last year, but just to clarify the vast differences in the numbers of awards I've been checking some of the figures.

During the course of the Great War, there were only 135 Military Medals awarded to women - all nationalities, all theatres of war. Of these, 87 were to nurses working with either QAIMNS or the TFNS in France and Flanders. As for the Royal Red Cross (1st Class) and Associate Royal Red Cross (2nd Class) there were simply thousands in total, not only to nursing staff, but to any woman who had done good work in any capacity concerned with the care of the British soldier. The number awarded to nurses working in France and Flanders under the auspices of the War Office alone was 264 for the RRC and 919 for the ARRC, with another 1755 mentioned in dispatches. When you start adding those women working in the UK and other areas of war, the list starts to look endless. So sheer numbers have excluded the inclusion of a list of RRC awardees on the website, although I do have a complete digital copy of the relevant volumes of the RRC Register, and should be able to find any individual entry if needed. Perhaps at some time in the future I will settle down and organise an online index of the RRC Registers, but I really hope that The National Archives do it first!

Our Hospital ABC

2008-12-12T12:57:00.007Z

T are the Tents whos inmates maintain,
They are fine healthy places in spite of the rain

Several years ago I bought a copy of a book called 'Our Hospital ABC'. Published in 1916, it's a variation on a child's alphabet book, but based on a VAD's life in a military hospital. All the illustrations are by Joyce Dennys with verses by Hampden Gordon and M. C. Tindall. Joyce Dennys died in 1991, and since then there has been a great surge of interest in her work, and I thought it might be of interest to include a couple of the pages from this small book which is becoming increasingly rare. Some difficulty with scanning has resulted in the image colours not being quite true, and the uniforms are more blue in the original, but they are still a delightful look back at life as it was then.

N are the Nurses, the right sort of wenches,
To look after the lads who are back from the trenches

Difficulties with Recruitment 1903

2008-11-30T12:27:00.003Z

When QAIMNS was formed in 1902, many of the staff and conditions of service were carried over from the old Army Nursing Service. At the same time, it was planned that the new Service would be an elite, forward-thinking one which would be the envy of civil hospitals and aspired to by many nurses. However, when the Nursing Board met in September 1903, it was to discuss the failure of their recruitment process to supply adequate numbers of nurses of the right calibre. The following abridged notes are taken from the minutes of that meeting, and set out some of the perceived reasons for the problems [The National Archives, WO243/20].

'The Nursing Board are face to face with the position that they cannot get nurses to join the Q.A.I.M.N.S... The terms of the service have been circulated amongst the civil hospitals, and there is but one opinion, that the terms offered are inadequate.
The Nursing Board must either be empowered to offer better terms, or the military service must be the dustheap into which is shot those nurses from civil hospitals whom the civil matrons do not want to keep, or female nursing of soldiers must be abandoned.
The Nursing Board want to attract into military nursing, firstly, the really good nurse, women who would assuredly succeed in civil nursing, and not the failures, who are many in number; secondly, women of good social position - very important.'

'When a young woman of 28 has finished her training at a civil hospital she looks round and decides what her future is to be, whether she will stay in hospital work, or, whether she will take up private nursing. In the former case, if at all good, she is quite certain of getting almost at once to be a sister, and from that position to gain, as she feels sure she will, a salary of £60 to £100... She then sees before her a matronship, perhaps first of a cottage hospital, with six to ten beds, and then of a larger hospitals, with a salary of £150, £300 and even £400...
If she stays in her civil hospital promotion is rapid. Few people realize how rapid...
But in the military service the promotion will be, and always has been, very slow. In civil work there are many openings for obtaining a better position and salary, in military nursing very few. Another reason why promotion must be slow in military nursing is that once having been in it for any length of time a nurse, never mind what her position, is absolutely debarred from any nursing appointment outside the Service. No matron of a civil hospital would take into her hospital a nurse who has been in a military hospital - a nurse who has had no experience in the nursing of women and children or of old people. It is a specialized service. So equally no committee would ever appoint as matron of a civil hospital a nurse from a military hospital; she would not have been in close touch with all the modern improvements which every year take place in the big civil hospitals. Thus all outlets are closed to women in the military service ... and the result is that "once in, always in" must be the state of affairs for any woman taking up military nursing. To sum up, if a nurse stays in military nursing she unquestionably loses her nursing pecuniary value. Her capital, so to speak, is depreciated.'

The Nursing Board solution to these problems was to offer a new, increased salary and pension scale which still did not look particularly attractive alongside the civil hospital scales that they had just set out. I find it interesting to reflect on the "once in, always in" comment, and the depressing view that on leaving the service, these well-trained and educated women would be found useless in civil nursing. Neither have the Board extolled the virtues of the Service, particularly the opportunities of overseas travel, and a certain security in their everyday life. I'm sure that many 'leavers' went on to have productive and rewarding careers after leaving military nursing, but these notes do provide an interesting angle on QAIMNS and its perceived 'elite' status.

What's in a Name?

2008-11-08T10:14:00.005Z

Soon after War broke out in 1914, No.3 London General Hospital (Territorial Force) was mobilised at the Royal Patriotic School, Wandsworth Common. The Commanding Officer, Colonel Bruce Porter, agreed to take on a group of men as Royal Army Medical Corps orderlies, all members of the Chelsea Arts Club, who were either too old, or unfit for military service, but who wanted to contribute to the war. Thus, he accumulated a wonderful collection of artists, sculptors, writers and poets, and laid the foundations for a hospital journal which became a prince among all others - The 3rd London General Gazette. It contains artwork, poetry both serious and humorous, cartoons, anecdotes of daily life in the hospital - hard to describe such a treasure trove. One of these Chelsea Arts Club men, Ward Muir, became the editor of the Gazette, and continued to write prolifically throughout the war. Here he describes the problems of addressing women in general, and some pitfalls facing the unwary when in the proximity of the trained nurse.

SISTER by J. Ward Muir

"There is a deal of difference, in hospital, between the word Sister and the word Nurse. Sister is, of course, a Nurse. But Nurse is not a Sister. However, there is nothing to prevent you calling Nurse 'Sister' - provided that Sister herself is not at your elbow. If she is, you had better be careful, both for your own sake and for Nurse's.
Some wearily-wise orderlies, and many patients of my experience, apostrophise all the female officials of a hospital as 'Sister.' The plan has its merits... Apart from the fact that it can offend none, and will cajole not a few, some universal appellation of this sort is - the soldier finds - almost a necessity in his constant dealing with women who are strangers to him.
He comes into contact with a host of women, especially after he is wounded; not only nursing women, but women on the ambulances, women who serve refreshments at halting places, women clerks who take his particulars, women who trace casualties, women who transact postal errands, and so on... To address them each indiscriminately as 'Miss' is absurd... 'Madam' is pedantic. 'Nurse' is in many instances manifestly ridiculous; you cannot call a clerical V.A.D. or a Y.M.C.A. waitress 'Nurse.' So, by a process of elimination, 'Sister' is reached.
Thus is comes to pass, the Mlle. Peroxide of the Frivol Theatre who takes a turn at ladling out cups of coffee in a railway-station canteen (with a press photographer handy) finds that the mud-stained Tommies are saying 'Another slice of cake, please, Sister,' or 'Any fags for sale here, Sister?' The Duchess, too, who is cutting bread-and-butter hears herself hailed by the same designation. And if both Miss Peroxide and the Duchess are not flattered (and maybe a little moved, too) I should be surprised.
For really, you know, 'Sister' is the happy word. It fits the situation - all such situations. Wouldn't it be possible to add one perfect touch; that our women comrades should drop into the habit of addressing us as 'Brother'? Officers and men alike - 'Brother'! It would be a symbol, this, of what the war ought to mean to us all; a fine collaboration of high and low, equals in endeavour...

When I was first put into a ward to serve as an orderly I was instructed beforehand that the only person to be entitled Sister was the goddess with the Stripes. Eager to be correct, I addressed the Staff Nurse as 'Nurse.' At once I divined there was something wrong. Her lips tightened. In a frigid voice she informed me of the significance of the Cape: all Cape-wearers held a status equivalent to that of a commissioned officer in the army, and must be treated as such by privates like myself. All Cape-wearers were to be accorded the proper courtesies and addressed as Sister. Furthermore, the speaker, realising that I was now a recruit, and therefore perhaps ignorant, would have me know that all Cape-wearers had undergone certain years of training... The speaker concluded by a sketch of her past career - I was held up in the midst of an urgent job to hearken to it - and a rough estimate of the relative indispensability of the female compared with the male staff. Finally I was dismissed with an injunction to hurry, and finish my incompleted task. 'Very good, Sister,' I replied.
Half an hour later, in a pause in the morning's rush, I was beckoned aside into the ward kitchen by Sister herself. She gently apprised me that, as I was a new recruit, she thought perhaps I was not yet aware of the accurate modes of address and the etiquette customary in a military hospital. Etcetera, etcetera. She had overheard me call the Staff Nurse 'Sister.'

Enough. One may smile at these exhibitions of feminine human nature (and I could match them, absolutely, on the male side), but when all is said and done 'Sister' is a beautiful title, and most of the women who receive it - whether correctly or because, by war service, they have had it bestowed upon them - richly deserve it as a token of gratitude and honour."

Blue Plaque - an update

2008-11-01T11:55:00.002Z

In May this year I wrote about English Heritage Blue Plaques, and said that I'd sent in a proposal for a plaque to be placed on one of the two houses in Chelsea that was home to Dame Maud McCarthy. Born in Australia, she came to England in 1891 and trained as a nurse at The London Hospital. She served as a member of the Army Nursing Service Reserve in South Africa during the Boer War, and joining QAIMNS in 1902 she later became Matron-in-Chief with the British Expeditionary Force, serving in France and Flanders from 1914 to 1919.
This plaque proposal was considered (with many others) at English Heritage's Committee meeting in October, and yesterday I heard that it has been considered worthy to go forward for full historical research. They always have many proposals in the pipeline, and this next step is likely to take at least two or three years, but it's very encouraging that the first hurdle has been overcome.

English Heritage Blue Plaques

Military Medals

2008-10-26T14:15:00.004Z

In June 1916 the Royal Warrant for the Military Medal was amended so that women could also be eligible for the award. Since 1883 the Royal Red Cross had been awarded to nurses for outstanding acts of bravery and devotion to duty during the course of their work, and was much revered by the profession as a reward for services above the normal call of duty. However, during the Great War the RRC was separated into two classes, 1st class (RRC) and 2nd class (Associate or ARRC) and was issued by the thousand to women who although engaged in some way in the nursing of sick and wounded soldiers, were not necessarily trained nurses. It became an anomaly that due to a 'quota' system, the untrained Commandant of a forty-bedded Red Cross Hospital could receive the RRC for running her small unit efficiently, while the Matron of a 2000-bedded British General Hospital who was working sixteen-hour days on the Western Front went without. When nursing sisters and other women workers in France and Flanders became increasingly subject to the dangers of German air-raids and shelling, many of them showed the most outstanding bravery and disregard for their own safety in order to protect and care for the patients in their charge. The amendment of the Royal Warrant extending the award of the Military Medal to women provided a prestigious alternative to the Royal Red Cross, and one which would recognise a small group of women who had acted with great courage under fire.

During the Great War 135 Military Medals were awarded to women, both civilians and those working in military hospitals. Fifty-five of those awards were to members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Force Nursing Service, and I've recently put details of these women, with citations for their awards, on the Scarletfinders website. The citations are those written by the officer responsible for submitting the names for consideration, and vary in their content and descriptive quality, but give an excellent picture of the magnificent work and outstanding actions of nurses during the normal course of their work during the Great War.

The pages can be found by following this link:

Scarletfinders - Military Medals awarded to members of QAIMNS and TFNS

Training Hospitals 1902

2008-10-15T15:56:00.005+01:00

As I've got an enforced period of sitting at home at present, I've had some time to go through documents I've found, and re-read some of those I'd forgotten about. When QAIMNS was formed in 1902, it was planned to improve its exclusivity by only accepting applications from women who had been trained at the best hospitals in the country. In the event it soon became obvious that this method would never provide enough applicants, and the rules were rapidly relaxed, but this extract from the minutes of the QAIMNS Nursing Board that year gives the list of preferred institutions - I wonder what a similar list would look like today?

The National Archives WO243/20
Minutes of Nursing Board, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service 1902

List of approved hospitals and training schools
The Board has at its disposal information concerning hospitals with accommodation for about 100 patients and upwards in the UK and British Dominions, in which training for nurses is provided. It has come to the conclusion that the training in these institutions varies greatly, and also varies from time to time in individual institutions. In many of these institutions it is clear that the training provided for nurses is not of the standard which should be recognised for the purposes of the QAIMNS.
The Board concludes that it will not be advisable at present to draw up a definite list of hospitals and nurse training schools, but for convenience of the Board it recommends that the Nurse Training Schools attached to Schools of Medicine in the UK should for the present be recognised for the purposes of QAIMNS. In the case of nurses applying for admission from other training schools, the application of each nurse should be specially considered by the Nursing Board and recorded in its minutes.
List of approved institutions:

England
Metropolitan
Charing Cross Hospital
Guy's Hospital
King's College Hospital
The London Hospital
Middlesex Hospital
Royal Free Hospital
St. Bartholomew's Hospital
St. George's Hospital
St. Mary's Hospital
St. Thomas' Hospital
University College Hospital
Westminster Hospital

Provincial
Birmingham General Hospital
Birmingham, The Queen's Hospital
Bristol General Hospital
Bristol Royal Infirmary
Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge
Cardiff Infirmary
Leeds General Infirmary
Liverpool General Infirmary
Manchester Royal Infirmary
Newcastle-on-Tyne Royal Infirmary
Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford

Scotland
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
Dundee Royal Infirmary
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
Glasgow Royal Infirmary
Glasgow Western Infirmary

Ireland
Belfast, Royal Victoria Infirmary
Dublin, Adelaide Hospital
Dublin, Mater Misericordiae
Dublin, St. Vincent's Hospital
Dublin, Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital
Dublin, The Richmond Hospital

Dear Father revisited

2008-10-15T10:31:00.003+01:00

I've written previously about the social status of members of the 'Regular' QAIMNS service, and in June I commented this extract from a book by Penny Starns:

'Military nurses were recruited primarily from the ranks of officers' wives, widows and daughters, and this elitist recruitment practice, combined with royal patronage, ensured that the military nursing services occupied a prestigious position within the profession overall'

Doubting that most of these women were the daughters of army officers (there were definitely no wives or widows after 1902) I've now done a little more work on the profession of the fathers of those women who joined the service between its inauguration in March 1902 and the outbreak of the Great War (August 4th 1914).
There were 495 women who were appointed to Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service during this period, and I've fitted them in to one of fifty-eight occupational categories. As I have worked from the applicant's own description of her father's profession, there are varied descriptions of what is likely to be a similar job. For instance, I've used 'Minister of the Church' to include 'clergyman', 'clerk in holy orders', 'Weslyan minister' etc., and similarly 'Merchant' encompasses a multitude of trading - yarn, silk, gold and silver, corn, iron, wine, granite etc; the list is very long, but does not include shopkeepers, who were not very numerous in the list.
I found that of those fifty-eight categories, the top five accounted for half of the 495 women, and the top ten covered 350 in total - here are the top five:

Minister of the Church - 60
Farmer - 57
Merchant - 49
Army Officer - 46
Doctor/Surgeon - 35

There is no bottom five as such; twenty-three fathers have a profession unique to the list, and they include a museum curator, lithographer, a public analyst, the manager of a salmon fishery and a Writer to the Signet (I'll leave that to Google!).
This is a rough and ready appraisal, but certainly shows that there was considerable diversity in the background of QAIMNS nurses which probably veered rather more to peace and love than to war.

Researching a Nurse

2008-09-28T09:14:00.003+01:00

For some time I've had a page on the Scarletfinders website which offers some ideas for people who are trying to trace nurses who served during the Great War, and I thought it might be useful to repeat it here. It outlines some of the main sources of records, most of which are not available online, and could lead on to some travelling and footwork, but hopefully a worthwhile cause.

TRACING GREAT WAR NURSES

It's often the case that the only thing you know about a family member is that she was 'a nurse in the Great War', but have no inkling of where to look for more information. Hopefully this page will give you some idea of where to start. The term 'nurse' is used frequently and rather loosely in connection with the Great War. Women who worked as nurses could have been trained, partly trained or untrained. They could have been employed by the War Office; the Joint War Committee (British Red Cross Society and St. John Ambulance Association); the French Red Cross (Croix Rouge); any number of independent organizations such as the Scottish Women's Hospital, or in ordinary civil hospitals in the United Kingdom. They might also have worked with the military nursing services of Canada, South Africa, New Zealand or the USA. If you're looking for a trained nurse, the first thing to do is check the Catalogue of The National Archives to see if she is included in class WO399, which contains all surviving files of women who served with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Force Nursing Service:

The National Archives Catalogue

Put the surname in the 'Word or Phrase' box, and in the 'Department or Series Code' box put WO399. If you're searching for a common surname, remember to scroll through the complete results, as although they will be displayed as one continuous list, there are two separate alphabetical runs combined. If you find the right person, you will find her service file number, but the records themselves are not online. Not all files have survived, some being destroyed during the 1930s. If your nurse served overseas with the Army medical services, the British Red Cross or one of the recognised independent organizations, she would have been entitled to service medals, and should have a medal index card at The National Archives. These cards, in themselves, do not give a lot of information, but if you're working in the dark they are particularly useful for finding which organization a woman was attached to, and her position or rank. Start with this page on TNA website:

TNA Documents Online

Follow the 'Search' link and on the next page choose 'WW1 Campaign Medals' to access the search page. For trained nurses it's always worth searching the archives of the British Journal of Nursing, which are complete and online for the period from 1888-1956. This is a wonderful resource both for tracing nurses, and for general information on the history of nursing:

British Journal of Nursing

Use the 'Search Journals' link, and try to keep it as simple as possible - just surname if it's unusual to stand alone, and remembering to insert a full stop after initials if you're using them. Not all trained nurses get a mention, but it's often possible to trace a woman's career for many years. Fully trained nurses who continued to work after 1922 are likely to have registered with the General Nursing Council following the Nurses Registration Act of 1919, and their details might be found in the Registers of the GNC. A run of these are held at The National Archives in class DT10, and also by the Royal College of Nursing. These volumes contain details of name, number on the Register, training school with dates, and permanent address at time of publication. Registers for women trained in Scotland are held by the National Archives of Scotland, and also by the Royal College of Nursing in Edinburgh.

Untrained nurses (VADs) and trained nurses who worked for the Joint War Committee often have service records held by the British Red Cross Society in London, and it's always worth an enquiry. Information and contact details are here:

British Red Cross Society personnel records

Going back a bit further, there are limited service records available for women who joined the Army Nursing Service between 1870 and 1891, and which are held at The National Archives in class WO25/3955. Unfortunately there are none for those who joined between 1891 and 1914 unless they went on to serve during the Great War and have a file in WO399 (see above). However, their postings to different hospitals can be found by tracing them through copies of the Army List, available at The National Archives and many other large libraries and archives. Many nurses who served during the Boer War, either in the Army Nursing Service or Princess Christian's Army Nursing Service Reserve, can be found in the database on this website - it's been updated recently and seems a little more difficult to navigate, but persevere:

Boer War Nurses

If you know where your nurse trained, there might still be records held of her time there. The location of all surviving hospital records are held on a national database jointly held by The National Archives and the Wellcome Library:

Hospital Records Database

Note that none of these records are acutally held at TNA - the details of each hospital will give you the current location with scope and dates. For more advice about tracing nurses in civil hospitals see this page on the Royal College of Nursing website, which contains much useful information, addresses and links:

Tracing Nurses

I get asked increasingly about tracing members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Force Nursing Service who served in the Second World War. All service records for these women are still retained by the Ministry of Defence, and are only available to the nurse herself, her next of kin or their representatives. Full details and the address for all enquiries is here:

Ministry of Defence personnel records

Happy hunting!

Gallipoli 1915 - Part Two

2008-08-14T15:24:00.003+01:00

Suvla, August 1915.

Every day that passes shows more plainly that the great attack has failed. The Australians, I gather, had a success on the 2^nd, at Tasmania Post, but their losses were very heavy. Those on the spot appear to know rather less than more of the real issues. Everything seems in a terrible muddle, but the scattered utterances I hear are very dispiriting.

“We got there,” Colonel ‘A’ told me; and his voice was unutterably weary when he added: “and then we had to come back.”

It seems that the Gurkhas and some of the Irish struggled up to the heights of Sari Bair under murderous fire, and there waited for the rest of the detachment, greatly exulting if suffering severely; the others lost themselves and never reached their comrades in front, who had to retire exposed to fire from the same guns. I never listened to a sadder story.
We rise at 6 a.m., and are seldom in bed before midnight. Upon the arrival of the “Gloucester Castle,” surgical operations commenced and were continued for thirty-six hours without a pause, and it is fortunate that the weather kept fine. The poor maimed suffering boys – for the majority of the wounded are nothing more than boys in years – like in rows on the deck outside the operating theatre, just as they are taken from the lighter, awaiting their turn. After being operated upon they are carried to the wards, thus saving them unnecessary moving and handling. How wonderfully brave and uncomplaining they are.

“Just let me have a look at that,” said one lad. “It’s only my mother,” he added, with a shy little smile. Poor boys! Poor mothers! So far apart. They are worse off than those in France.

The mental strain weighing on the officers runs through their delirious mutterings. One Captain must have been hit just after he had sent an important despatch, for he is continually muttering, “That fellow ought to be back.” “He got through all right.” “I watched him all the way down, it is time he was back.” “I cannot think why he does not come.” Only death ends his anxiety. Another shot through both lungs, keeps starting up and saying he must get back, he is wanted. “I’d be fit enough if you would only give me something strong to pull me together. Can’t you give me anything?” On trying to drink he falls back gasping, only to start all over again until unconsciousness comes to his relief. Another patients is suffering from almost complete paralysis; he was knocked down and covered by rock and debris; he is quite award of the gravity of his case, but very rarely does he give way. (I am glad to say that reports show he was making a good recovery in England.)

The transport of the seriously wounded down the rough mountain tracks was both painful and slow. A major of the Royal Irish, who had been shot through the lung, said how dreadfully he had suffered from the jolting of the stretcher; he was almost unconscious at the time but can just remember someone leaning over him and saying, “He’s done for, poor chap.” The less seriously wounded were full of fun; one staff officer, from whose leg a bullet has been extracted at his own request without chloroform, insists on hopping round on his good leg to talk to the others. He does his comrades so much good that the nurses pretend not to see him disobeying orders right under their eyes. He knows Captain “D” who is dying unconscious with a fractured base, and promises to write to Captain “D’s” people. There are a large number of medical officers and chaplains among the patients; one Roman Catholic padre being seriously wounded.

There is no cover of any sort on shore, and at the dressing station fragments of bursting shell splash into the basins, so that the staff have to seize their patients and scamper with them along the beach.. On the ship, accommodation has been provided for an extra four hundred patients by putting mattresses and hammocks along the decks. As they lie there huddled together as close as possible, they have to be sorted out and dressed; then entered on the nominal roll. Oh, that nominal roll! The Commanding Officer is heard to talk of it every night in his sleep. One unregistered officer was discovered on deck, raving and delirious; another, lying among some lightly wounded, was so faint that he could not call; his face was disfigured with ugly sores, his uniform in rags, and his badges missing. Whenever an orderly cannot be found near his duties, he is generally found talking to a young Australian who is lying in a hammock, and who has lost both of his legs and his eyesight, while one arm is fractured; yet he lives and jokes and sings. He is known as “Tipperary.” (He reached Alexandria, but after that I lost sight of him.)

Three miles out from Suvla the ship slackens speed and the dead are committed to the deep. Ships carrying sick proceed to Lemnos, where orders are received either to transfer th epatients to a home-bound ship, or take them to one of the Mediterranean bases. In spite of the rush and scramble, anti-tetanic serum is being given with great regularity and with good results. There are some very bad cases of gas-gangrene; one young New Zealander, who was lying out for twenty-four hours with a compound fracture, lost first his leg and then his life from this condition. Even slight shell and shrapnel wounds are complicated by much bruising of the surrounding tissues and need to be treated with great judgement. Cases of dysentery, gastro-enteritis and colitis are very numerous; there is also a good deal of paratyphoid, but inoculation has done much to diminish cases of enteric. The “Gloucester Castle” has twice the number of patients it is supposed to accommodate, and on an average a fresh lot are received every week, consequently the supply of hospital suits on board is not sufficient to meet this demand, and as the patients come on board covered with dirt and blood, and it being impossible to deal with the patients’ own clothing, the Red Cross clothing is found invaluable.
August 1915 will not soon be forgotten by any who spent it in the Dardanelles.

Malta, December 1915

It is always pleasant to get to Malta, the patients feel that they are half-way home. Lemnos now is terribly bleak, and although Mudros harbour appears sheltered, it can blow furiously there and show as cold and dreary an aspect as any spot on earth.
December has been the saddest month of the saddest year! At the end of November (27) one of the most furious storms broke over the much tried troops at Suvla and Anzac. Those who lived through it say it seemed as if the Powers of Darkness had broken loose. The wind howled and shrieked, wrecking buildings and tearing up every shelter. Provisions and clothing were carried away and destroyed by flooded torrents that burst from the hills. To sleep or prepare any food was impossible.
One officer came across some men reeling drunk with spirits they had taken from a wrecked store; they were staggering unsteadily along, bearing a stretcher with a wounded man, yet the officer said that at the time it did not surprise him, it just seemed part of the pandemonium that reigned everywhere. The storm and floods lasted three whole days and were followed by a severe frost. This cold weather had not been expected so soon and very few possessed any warm footgear, consequently hundreds of frostbitten cases were received on board. The Gurkhas suffered badly and I am afraid some of them will lose their feet. After this it was a relief to hear that Suvla and Anzac were to be evacuated, and although the evacuation was a severe blow to one’s pride, there was considerable satisfaction when, a few days before Christmas, the evacuation order was successfully carried out.
The Australian troops felt the leaving very bitterly; they had struck deep roots at Anzac, but they entered into it with zest and even got some fun out of it. Groups of half a dozen remained behind to run up and down the gullies showing lights so as to give the impression that the usual number were there. Already their hearts are set on France: it is there that they wished to go. A very interesting picture of a group who had been in the first landing, eight months previous, was taken on the last hospital ship from Anzac. A staff group, photographed on the deck of the “Aragon,” had a narrow escape. A Taube dropped a bomb on the spot where the group had been standing, a few minutes after they had dispersed.

One of the hardships of the Gallipoli campaign was its remoteness for sick and wounded. Those invalided home from France could see their people almost immediately, but what patient cared about getting to Malta or Alexandria? And how deeply they loathed Lemnos; mails, too, were scanty and irregular. A particular case I have in mind is of an officer who was suffering from a very serious head wound, and how, on his partially regaining consciousness, his eyes would rove about so wistfully, seeking for some familiar face. I used to think that his groping senses might have cleared could they but have settled on someone he knew. It was pathetic to hear this officer ask over and over again, “Where? Where?” Colonel Balance spent considerable time on board in consultation over this particular case; his sympathy and kindness to the patient made a great impression on me. (I had the pleasure of being shown round the beautifully equipped hospital at Ligne by Colonel Balance. My patient eventually died in that hospital.)
What should we do in these times without some of the lighter interludes? A major who was suffering from a contused wound of the head caused roars of laughter by his account of how he was hit by a tin of biscuits. His dug-out was protected by a barricade of stores consisting chiefly of tins of biscuits; a shell went right through them, alighting in the last case but one, but without exploding, the last tin being thrown with some violence on to his head. It was a wonderful escape and the major boasts that he is the only man in the British Army who knows exactly through how many tins of biscuits that particular kind of shell will penetrate.