The Dead Nurses' Society

     The men and women who died on military service during the First World War are invariably  the group who attract the most publicity, most column space in newspapers and by far the most mentions on the web. Maybe that's understandable, not only because of the emotions that death during wartime arouses in people, but also because they are so much easier to research. Their names are on war memorials nationwide and the majority of those names are listed on the database of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. With a couple of clicks it's possible to find relatives or local men and women who died while serving their country between 1914 and 1921. Their names truly 'Liveth for Evermore'.

     However, most of those who served their country didn't die but returned home again to take up employment, to marry and to prosper, or possibly to suffer from the effects of war throughout their lives, blighting their happiness. The majority of women were employed on the Home Front and although their work might have been demanding and stressful it rarely put them in immediate danger, though I must exclude munition workers here who often worked under dangerous conditions and who history has chosen to sideline more than any other group of women. The figures I'm using as examples are just a rough estimate but hopefully serve to make a point.

     Between 22,000 and 24,000 trained nurses served with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, it's Reserve and the Territorial Force Nursing Service. The lack of service records in the public domain makes an exact figure impossible to estimate. The number of untrained nurses - members of Voluntary Aid Detachments -  is even more difficult to work out. They included not only VADs who performed nursing duties but also General Service VADs who from 1917 worked as drivers, orderlies, waitresses, clerks, typists, and store-women in military hospitals. Then there were the members of War Hospital Supply Depots whose work involved the sewing of garments, the preparation of dressings and packing of stores and comforts for distribution both at home and abroad. Together the Red Cross workers are likely to have totalled well in excess of 100,000.  If you include nurses working in the military wards of civil hospitals the total figure for nursing staff engaged in caring for military personnel during wartime is likely to have totalled more than 150,000. In addition to these it's believed that nearly a million women were working in engineering and munitions.

     Of this multitude of women workers, only a tiny percentage died during wartime, less than 1% of the total - and of those, very few deaths actually resulted from war service. Most died due to illness or disease that would have proved fatal in any conditions, such as influenza, pneumonia, diabetes, gastric ulcers and cancers of many types. Dead women are now 'celebrated' on websites such as Facebook where many pages are dedicated to women who served during the First World War.  But far from remembering them all, these pages are frequently crammed with information solely on those who died and resulting in bland, throwaway comments such as 'RIP,' and of course, 'We will remember them.' No, I don't think you will - another couple of days and you'll have trouble remembering what you ate yesterday and certainly not the names or causes of death of women whose pictures you briefly looked at. Photos of headstones on Twitter may tell us a woman died, but say nothing about the work she did and what her life was like.

Victory Parade, London, July 1919.  They lived!  They lived!

     Why, why, why can't we celebrate what nurses DID during the war without this mawkish tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on the tiny percentage who died?  After all, they're all dead now, and  deserve the same respect and remembrance. Make nurses famous for their deeds, their endeavour and their dedication, not just famous for dying.

The VAD and the Casualty Clearing Station

     I'm always complaining about errors made in placing VADs in Casualty Clearing Stations during the First World War.  Writers of fiction, newspapers, the BBC, the world and his wife, all love to see them in the thick of it with bombs falling and shrapnel whizzing past the poor VAD on her way to the bin with an amputated leg.  It's fair to say that the senior medical staff in France and Flanders would have agreed to them being there, but the Matron-in-Chief was adamant that only the best and most experienced trained nurses were good enough to be working at the sharpest of ends and it was she who won that battle.  Of course if you look hard enough it's often possible to find an exception to any rule and during a long and varied war there was at least one VAD who managed to buck the trend.

     Alice Batt was born in Oxfordshire in 1890, the daughter of Charles Dorrington Batt, a doctor, and his wife Isabel (née Wake). By the outbreak of war Charles Batt and several of his children were involved with local Voluntary Aid Detachments, his son John, also a doctor, becoming resident medical officer during wartime at the large auxiliary hospital at Ampton Hall, Bury St. Edmunds. Alice Batt first worked as a VAD in London at the Officers' Hospital, 6 Bruton Street - the heart of Mayfair and in March 1916 she signed for overseas service and was sent to No.9 British Red Cross Hospital, the 'Duchess of Sutherland's,' at that time in Calais.

Operating theatre staff No.9 BRCS Hospital (Duchess of Sutherland's) in July 1917  [IWM Q2615]

     During the final weeks of the war as the British army advanced, the hospital moved further forward to Hazebrouck by which time Alice Batt was working as an operating theatre orderly. Although this was not a role undertaken by VADs in British military hospitals, it was found acceptable in units run under the control of the Joint War Committee of the BRCS and Order of St. John. By the beginning of October 1918 although Britain seemed to be winning the war, casualties were great and all medical units were working under extreme pressure.

     Three Casualty Clearing Stations working side by side at Rousbrugge [Roesbrugge], Nos.11, 36 and 44, were in danger of being overwhelmed with casualties and a request had been made for extra staff which could not be fulfilled at the time by other British units under War Office control.  The principal need was for 'surgical teams' which were mobile groups used to fill urgent gaps, and each team  was made up of one surgeon, one anaesthetist, a trained theatre sister and one or two theatre orderlies.  Appeals were made both to Canadian and American units who were able to send some reinforcements but the three CCSs at Rousbrugge were still understaffed.  At that point two surgical teams were offered by No.9 British Red Cross Hospital, an offer which was gratefully accepted and probably the only time during the war that this happened.  Theatre orderly Alice Batt was part of one of those teams and she joined the staff of No.36 Casualty Clearing Station. Within a few days she was at the centre of a drama for which she was later awarded the Albert Medal for her actions. The citation published in the London Gazette 25th April 1919, gives the details:

The KING has been pleased to award the Albert Medal in recognition of gallantry displayed in saving life: —
Miss -Alice Batt, Voluntary Aid Detachment
On the 1st October, 1918, a fire broke out at No. 36, Casualty Clearing Station at Rousbrugge, Belgium, and quickly reached the operating theatre, where the surgeon, was performing an abdominal operation. The light went out, and the theatre was quickly filled with-smoke and flames, but the operation was continued by the light of an electric torch, Miss Batt continuing her work of handing instruments and threading needles with steadfast calmness, thereby enabling the surgeon to complete the operation. Miss Batt afterwards did splendid work in helping to carry men from the burning wards to places of safety.

     As the staff of the Duchess of Sutherland's Hospital were predominately female, it's possible that Alice Batt was not the only VAD employed at a British CCSs during that hectic period, but the award of her Albert Medal makes her the only one to be positively identified.  Full details of Alice Batt's wartime service are included on the BRCS website here:

Original card that shows work in London

Later card for overseas service

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More Misdeeds of Military Nurses

 

 I always enjoy coming across tales of sins committed by nurses in military hospitals and although I don't go hunting for them, when they jump off the page I find them hard to ignore. I've always stepped back from constantly portraying nurses during the First World War as angels of mercy and have tried to show them for what they really were - a wide range of normal women with a variety of different backgrounds and personalities. Finding tales of misdeeds gives a wonderful window onto the social mores of that time and serves as a stark reminder of how things have changed over the last hundred years. I came across this nurse while searching at The National Archives for someone with the surname Kerr.  This wasn't the right file but the contents proved interesting.*

     Margaret Taylor was born in 1893, the daughter of a coal miner, and her home was in Ellington, Northumberland. She trained as a nurse at St. Mary's Infirmary, Islington, and following her training she enrolled as a Staff Nurse in the Territorial Force Nursing Service. Her first posting was to the Killingbeck Section of the East Leeds War Hospital where she was employed from the 20th August 1917. Trouble - or maybe it was love - came swiftly. The following correspondence is taken from her service record and the letters are between Miss Sidney Browne, Matron-in-Chief of the TFNS and Euphemia (Effie) Innes, Principal Matron, No.2 Northern General Hospital, Leeds.

21st October 1917
Letter from Miss Innes to Sidney Browne:

Dear Madam - I am sorry to have to report the following occurrence at the Killingbeck War Hospital. One of the nurses, namely Nurse Margaret Taylor, was married without our knowledge on September 22nd 1917 to a patient who was in the hospital suffering from dysentery. It was found out by the Chaplain, owing to a clergyman he knew mentioning to him quite casually in conversation that he had married two people from Killingbeck. The Chaplain then made inquiries and got a copy of the marriage certificate. The marriage was witnessed by a V.A.D. and a patient from the Hospital. We have suspended Nurse Taylor until we hear from you. The V.A.D. has not been very satisfactory and we had already told her we would not keep her after November 11th 1917.  The patient who has married Nurse Taylor has been suffering from dysentery and had no right to be outside the Hospital grounds.
I am very sorry that this happened as we are very particular about the behaviour of the nurses with the patients, and this kind of thing has such a very bad effect on the patients. I told Miss Tomlin to tell Nurse Taylor that she would probably not be allowed to go on duty again.
Margaret Taylor, Staff Nurse, joined the East Leeds Hospital from the Headquarters Staff on August 20th 1917. She was sent to the Killingbeck Section of the Hospital for duty on arrival.

24th October 1917 
Reply from Sidney Browne to Miss Innes:

Dear Madam - With reference to your letter of the 21st October with regard to Miss Margaret Taylor, I am so sorry to hear about her behaviour, particularly as she had such good references when she joined. Do not let her go on duty again, and unless you and the Colonel think it advisable to allow her to resign, the report of her conduct must be sent in officially with the recommendation as to the course you wish to be taken, and she will be dismissed the Service, but if you and the Commanding Officer would rather she resigned you can tell her this may be allowed, although she does not deserve it, and she must not apply to another Military Hospital for Service again. I shall be glad if you will kindly let me have her married name, when I will let the British Red Cross Society and the other branch of the War Office know she is not suitable for enrolment. Miss Taylor in the circumstances forfeits her claim to a gratuity.

31st October 1917
Miss Innes to Sidney Browne:

Dear Madam - In reply to your letter and in consultation with the C.O. we have decided that it will be better for Staff Nurse Miss Margaret Taylor, now Mrs Kerr, to resign and therefore today I have forwarded her resignation papers to the D.D.M.S. I enclose the Insurance Form but unfortunately Mrs Kerr does not know her number.  I have given her a very severe reprimand and I fear very much she will live to regret her actions.

It's impossible to know of course if Margaret Taylor did live to regret her actions, but after just four weeks devoted to meeting and marrying John Kerr I too have my doubts about the possible recklessness of her decision.  True to her word, Miss Browne confirmed that Margaret Taylor's career as a nurse military hospitals was over by writing the following day to all other interested parties, Ethel Becher, Matron-in-Chief, QAIMNS, Miss Swift, Matron, British Red Cross Society, and Katharine Furse, VAD Commandant at Headquarters:

Dear Madam - I am directed to inform you that the following Staff Nurse T.F.N.S.:
Mrs Kerr, nee Margaret Taylor has resigned from the Territorial Force Nursing Service. If this lady applies to you for enrolment if would be well to apply to this office for further particulars.

If you have John and Margaret Kerr in you family tree, I'd love to know what the future held for them!

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*Service file of Margaret Kerr, née Taylor, The National Archives WO399/12562

A Case of Instant Dismissal

There was considerable unrest during wartime about the lack of protection afforded to nurses in their contracts of service and the risk of instant dismissal with no power of appeal. Following many protests this was changed in early 1918, but prior to that a number of nurses had the misfortune to discover how powerless they were in certain circumstances. More details of the background to this can be read on this page of The Fairest Force website:

Contracts and the Serf Clause

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Mary Elizabeth Southern was born in August 1882 in Binchester, Co. Durham, the daughter of an official in a coal mine. She worked for four years at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Lunatic Asylum, Gosforth, before taking her General nurse training between 1910 and 1913 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Union Infirmary. She joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve in April 1915 and was quickly posted to Egypt where she served for a year before being transferred to the Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington, in August, 1916. Her work and behaviour appeared entirely problem free, but events in the summer of 1917 were to prove her downfall. On the 29th August Mary Southern was dismissed without notice by the Matron, Maud Banfield, herself a nurse impeccably trained and with great nursing experience pre-war both in the UK and also the United States of America. That day Miss Banfield wrote the following letter to the medical authorities:

Copies of some of the photographs are contained in Mary Southern's service file held at The National Archives and one is reproduced below.

It can hardly be thought of as shocking to us today and even then was probably considered fairly mild in most circumstances, but the horror expressed by Miss Banfield knew no limits. Her letter fails to mention quite how angry she was at the time, but a letter written  the following month by Miss Southern to Ethel Becher, the Matron-in-Chief, gives a better idea of what was said by Miss Banfield:

I have served over one year abroad and on a Hospital Ship, and a year in the Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington, and from this hospital I was dismissed, my offence being that I had given a picnic to five patients and my night nurses. I confess to the deed, at the end of my run of nights I gave that little pleasure to those people. ...  What I must complain of is the severity with which I was punished and the awful personal accusations of the Matron, amongst them the following: 

"You are a disgrace to any nursing staff"
"You are absolutely unfit to wear any nurses uniform"
"You are capable, and guilty of leading nurses astray"
"You are a dangerous woman to have about the place"
"Your familiarity with patients is contemptible."

These and other cruel and untrue things ... 

"Pack up and go as quickly as possible."   In three hours I left the institution, no longer time was allowed me or any other warning given. Thrown instantly out of employment and robbed of reputation. The sentence was as unjust as it was drastic and out of all proportion to the offence.  I was given no opportunity to speak in self defence, evidently I was to be punished to the limit of Matron's power as a warning perhaps.  But if this is such a huge crime I am not by any means the first or only offender. Altogether it does not appear to be a fair example of British mercy and justice. My patients' gratitude and enthusiasm was reward enough for the pleasure I had given them. And though I have had to pay so dearly, I can only regret in so far as it prevents me from doing any further nursing in the Army where every British nurse feels she ought to be serving if possible.

A grievously dishonoured servant, M. E. Southern.

On the 17th October, Miss Banfield replied to Miss Southern's remarks:

On leaving, Miss Banfield added a note to Mary Southern's file saying 'I regret I cannot recommend Mary E. Southern for a gratuity.'

On the 26th September 1917, the QAIMNS Nursing Board met to discuss what should be done about Miss Southern's dismissal, and whether the chance of resignation would be a fairer outcome:

The Nursing Board met to discuss a report received in regard to Miss M. E. Southern, Q.A.I.M.N.S.(R.), employed at Lord Derby Hospital, Warrington.  Miss Southern had been summarily dismissed by the Matron, Miss Banfield, Q.A.I.M.N.S.(R.), on account of flagrant disobedience to rules.  The case was referred to D.P.S. who did not concur in the action taken by the Matron.  Miss Cox-Davies proposed that Miss Southern's contract should forthwith be terminated, but on account of her previous satisfactory records of work, her resignation should be accepted. This was seconded by Miss Lloyd-Still and carried unanimously.

Miss Southern was allowed to tender her resignation rather than having the stigma of dismissal on her record and she did later receive the gratuity due to her. Unfortunately there's no service record for Maud Banfield at The National Archives, but after another intricate affair the following year, full of intrigue and complaint, the Nursing Board recommended that Maud Banfield should be moved from the Lord Derby War Hospital and reign supreme elsewhere.  My sympathies definitely lie with Mary Southern whose account throughout sounds entirely reasonable, and congratulations must surely go to the soldier who had the knowledge and enterprise to develop photographs on the ward of a War Hospital!

*****

Details above from the service file of Mary Southern held at The National Archives, WO399/7811. Images from the file used with TNA permission and an image fee paid for web use. 

Dorothy Mortimer Watson - A Soldier's Will

Dorothy Mortimer Watson was born in Yorkshire in early 1888 and after training as a nurse she joined the Territorial Force Nursing Service in February 1915, working at No.2 Northern General Hospital, Beckett's Park, Leeds and also at the East Leeds War Hospital.  In September 1916 she applied for overseas service and was posted to St. John's Hospital, Malta. The following spring she contracted measles and on the 13th March 1917 she died of associated toxaemia. Despite the fact that she had one sister, Beatrice Balfour Kemp, on all correspondence she named her cousin Herbert Illingworth as her next-of-kin, so following her death arrangements for managing her estate were referred to him, and all her belongings returned to his address. However, in June 1917 Herbert Illingworth wrote to the War Office from his home, Carlrayne, Leadhall Lane, Harrogate:

... Staff Nurse D. M. Watson died intestate so far as a fully drawn out will is concerned but left in my charge on leaving England a letter which she asked me, acting as her guardian, to dispose of her possessions, in the event of her not returning.  Would this be considered a 'soldier's will' to be accepted as legal, if so can it be forwarded on your request.  The small amount of money of which she was possessed she wished to be given to her only sister, small keepsakes of no great monetary value are to be given to various friends. Her sister has need of financial assistance, she is married but her husband is in the army ... 

The letter, addressed to Herbert's wife, read:

East Leeds War Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds, September 8th 1916

My dearest Nell,
I hope you will never have need to open this, but if you do, I would like you to have my ring with the diamond made into a tie pin for Stanley.  The rest of my money I think I would like Bea, my sister to have as she has most need of it. Will you have either my locket or my opal ring, & give the other to Clare, Pattie my brooch, and I have no more jewellery, so will you give Beatrice some little things amongst my work which I have made.  The rest of my things such as they are of course, you take.

Dorothy Watson


Three weeks later a reply was sent to Herbert Illingworth from the Assistant Financial Secretary at the War Office confirming that Dorothy Watson's brief letter could indeed be taken as a 'soldier's will.'

... it has been regarded by this Department as a valid Will executed by the late nurse whilst 'in actual military Service' within the meaning of the Wills Act, 1837.

Dorothy Mortimer Watson was buried at Pieta Cemetery, Malta
CWGC - Dorothy Watson

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Details taken from Dorothy Watson's service file held at The National Archives, WO399/15353

Nurses and Bravery - two years on

Two years ago I wrote about nurses being regarded as 'brave' for their work during wartime and suggested that they were many other things above 'brave.'  Since then, with the coming of the Centenary of the First World War, a great deal more has been written about nurses, mainly untrained VADs, and the concept that nurses were angels and heroines has become a strong thread running through their stories in books, the popular press and on television.  So two years on I'm taking the liberty of repeating my thoughts of August 2013 on what motivated nurses to engage with the war and where bravery stood on their list of attributes. 

***

     I've always had quite strong views on Great War nurses being described as angels and heroines, and the assertion that they were all  'brave.'  So I was interested in a thread on Twitter which went as follows:

Tweeter A.  Army Nurse Corps took hot water bottles to bed with them then made tea with that hot water next morning!
Tweeter B.  Some WW stories would be amazing to collate a brave history that we are loosing [sic] day by day
Tweeter C.  Perhaps bravery comes behind professionalism, stoicism, determination and skill
Tweeter A.  Bravery, the right choice under terrible circumstances, against all odds.

     Obviously A. felt that brave was the best word to describe these military nurses but it made me think again about war, nurses, and bravery. The early 20th century was a time when British nurses were fighting to have their qualifications officially recognised through a process of registration, to ensure that poorly trained and inexperienced women could no longer pass themselves off as fully-trained nurses. Many of them relished the chance that war gave them - to know that they would at last have a platform to show off their skills in a public and wide-ranging manner - the eyes of the nation and the wider world were on them as they were released from the anonymity of their peacetime role.

     I doubt if they were thinking about being brave when they first put on their new uniform and entered the doors of a military hospital. More likely they were thinking about being tested in a strange environment; about what skills they would need; how this new experience would give them an advantage in years to come as they climbed the nursing ladder. They must have wondered who would be working alongside them? Would there be any familiar faces from their training days? Would their pay and conditions be comparable to what they were already getting and would Army discipline defeat them? And when a few months later they added their names to the list of those wishing to go on active service overseas, did they do it because they were brave? I suggest that most of them were desperate to get nearer the action; to feel closer to their brothers, fathers and friends who were already abroad; to grasp the opportunity to visit places and see things they had never contemplated before. Nursing in France had an urgency and importance about it which was lacking in home hospitals - it made them special. And they wanted to be seen as special.

     They knew how hard the work could be - the rushes, the pushes, the pauses; the long hours and early mornings; the boring patches and the restrictions.  They knew that if they asked to be considered for duty nearer the front, at a casualty clearing station, they were nearer the guns, nearer danger, nearer the most badly wounded men. Did they go because they wanted to be brave?  My view is they went because they wanted to make a difference, and to be seen as making a difference.

     One of the few nurses who died as a result of enemy action is universally described as 'brave.'  Nellie Spindler died in her bed, while sleeping, the result of a shrapnel wound during an enemy bombing raid on her casualty clearing station. Can 'brave' be the best word to describe her? Unlucky, certainly, but hardly brave.

     There were nurses of all sorts, good, indifferent, and some very bad - bad behaviour, poor nursing skills, lack of tact, no sense of discipline. They were not all heroines, and of course, none of them were angels. Angels don't actually exist and trained nurses are very much of the real world. While there were undoubtedly individual acts of bravery by nurses during the war, it was not the lot of the majority. When they were in dangerous and difficult situations, being bombed or shelled or retreating with the enemy at their heels, they relied on their long experience, their skill, their confidence, determination, dedication and fortitude, and on an instant learnt response to emergencies. I would still say that all these came before bravery.

Nurses - Training and Registration

   
     At the time of the Great War there was still no national registration of nurses in the United Kingdom nor any official registers of who they were and where they were trained. Family historians trying to trace pre-war nurse ancestors still have to rely on information, letters and photos passed down over the generations. Census returns might yield up some information if caught at just the right moment, but even then only give a snapshot of where a nurse was working on one single day. Although nurses trained between 1860 and 1890 were likely to have completed just one year in hospital, by the turn of the twentieth century a three year training had become the standard required in hospitals throughout the country. As there were no national standards for nurses, those with a lesser training, or even no training at all could continue to nurse as long as they worked within the law and proved themselves safe - trained on the hedgerows of life.

Nurses in the classroom in 1900

     Nurses trained in hospitals received a certificate at the end of their one or three year period which was precious as it provided proof for future employers of their training and experience. Some hospitals insisted that nurses stayed on for a further year at the end of their training before receiving their certificate. Hospitals considered they'd spent a lot of time and effort on the training and the fourth year ensured they would retain a good supply of newly-trained nurses on their staff, at least in the short term.  Women were not compelled to stay for a fourth year but to leave without their certificate could have serious implications for their future careers.

     The fight for the national registration of nurses continued over more than three decades and was not universally supported by hospitals, doctors or nurses themselves. Ideas and suggestions as to the need for highly-educated nurses at that time throw up alarmingly similar parallels to the current debate on whether nursing has been improved by making it an all-degree profession. In 'The Lamp and the Book' Gerald Bowman writes of nurse reformer Ethel Bedford Fenwick:

'She was a crusader of almost fanatical spirit, a close friend of Mrs. Pankhurst who was leading the campaign for the women's vote.  She believed that only educated women could have a chance of winning freedom for womankind who were debarred from almost all professions and who, until 1882, five years beforehand, had no legal right to their own money after marriage.  She wanted her own profession of nursing to be brought into the same category, if not on a level with, the profession of medicine. That was the object of her first proposed state register to be exclusive to those who were fully trained and could pass an examination demanding a high educational standard. Only those women were to bear the honoured title of Nurse.  For the rest, her original proposal was that those who could not or would not train and sit for the examination, no matter how efficient they had been in practice, should drop the work.' **

     By the time the Nurses' Registration Act passed into law on the 23rd December 1919 the conditions for inclusion in the register were far broader than Mrs. Bedford Fenwick had desired. In addition to those nurses who held hospital certificates it was also possible for both women and men to be included if they had been in practice for a minimum of three years prior to November 1919 and had adequate knowledge and experience of nursing the sick.  The Act contained various clauses with regard to training, but it was Rule 9(1)g which set out the conditions by which a nurse without a hospital training or certificate could be registered:

'In the case of a nurse who was at 1st November 1916, engaged in actual practice and who produces the following evidences of knowledge and experience:
(a)  a certificate of good character;
(b)  a certificate signed by the matron of a general hospital or an infirmary or by two medical men setting out that the applicant has been in attendance upon the sick in the capacity of a nurse for a period of not less than three years prior to the 1st November, 1919; and
(c)  a certificate signed by a registered nurse and by two medical men, one of whom shall be on the staff of a general hospital, setting out that the applicant has adequate knowledge and experience of medical and surgical nursing and is competent to attend upon the sick in the capacity of a nurse.

     Registers of the General Nursing Council for England and Wales were published yearly from 1921 and from then all newly qualified nurses could apply to be included.  After 1923 it was a requirement that all women and men undertaking nurse training must pass a written and practical examination at the end of their course and from 1927 the GNC Register shows nurses qualified 'by certificate,' 'by examination' or by one of the other avenues, usually Rule 9(1)g.

A page from the General Nursing Council Register for 1928 showing nurses trained in the three ways mentioned above (click to enlarge)

     Almost one hundred years later medical care has advanced and nursing care has had to keep pace. However, the parallels in nurse training are still present; there are nurses working in hospitals today with various levels of educational achievement and training according to the regulations in place at the time. There are men and women with degrees, diplomas and still some qualified by examination at the end of their course. The latter group are fading fast as they work their way toward retirement. With nursing currently an all degree profession for new entrants in the United Kingdom, one hundred years on Ethel Bedford Fenwick finally seems to have come into her own. Of course, as might be expected, not everybody agrees with her, neither then nor now.

***

** The Lamp and the Book, the story of the RCN, 1916-1966; Gerald Bowman; The Queen Anne Press Ltd., 1967

Faith, Hope and Family

The recent release of the film ‘Testament of Youth’ has provided an opportunity to view yet another portrayal of nursing during the Great War.  Based on Vera Brittain’s book of the same name this isn’t the first time it’s been dramatized – it was a popular television series first broadcast in 1979. Vera Brittain was not a fan of trained nurses who on the whole she regarded as both socially and educationally inferior, lacking in imagination and altruism.  As readers of her work will know, one nurse she met in France and with whom she formed a lifelong friendship was the character she refers to as Hope Milroy – in real life Faith Moulson.  In common with most professional nurses Faith Moulson is not known to have been a writer nor did she come to notice for noble deeds, so Vera Brittain’s account of her as mad and eccentric is the only one available to us today. Both the television characterisation and that of the current film are rather different, so is the Sister of the 'Hun' ward, the Hope Milroy we read about or see on the screen anything like the real Faith Moulson?  Although sadly I’ll never know, I have found out a little about the Moulson family and while it won’t answer the question as to her mental state, it does shed some light on her life during the 19th and 20th centuries.

     Faith Moulson was born in 1885 in India, either Ferezepore or Abbottabad according to source, where her father John Moulson was a chaplain.  In ‘Testament of Youth’ Faith is described as coming from a long line of Bishops on her mother’s side and actors and writers on her father’s.  While the former is undoubtedly correct, her paternal grandfather was a commercial traveller and if there were actors in Faith’s past there is no obvious or immediate link to be found.  Her parents John Moulson and Lydia French were married in Amritsar, India, in November 1881. Lydia was born in Agra, the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Valpy French, first Bishop of Lahore, and to whom John Moulson was Chaplain.  Over the next ten years they had five daughters, Ruth, Muriel, Faith, Dorothy and Irene, all born in various parts of Northern India and then in 1892, back in England, their sixth and final child, a son, Geoffrey.

     During the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century the family travelled frequently to India but with Lydia Moulson and her children spending more time in England while her husband continued his ministry in India. There is some evidence to show that John Moulson was an abusive and violent man in private life. The following newspaper report is one of many similar accounts of an incident which occurred when the family were spending time in Devon in 1888, the case having been brought to court by the newly formed London Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children:

A CLERICAL BABY-BEATER.
On July 17 there was disclosed at Axminster Petty Sessions a tale of cruelty to a child so revolting, and in some of its circumstances so unprecedented, as to be almost incredible. The Rev. John Moulson was charged with having, on May 15 last, committed an aggravated assault upon his child Dorothy, aged 16 months. The reverend gentleman is an army chaplain in India, at present on furlough, and residing with his family in lodgings at Seaton. He happens to be the son-in-law of the Bishop of Lahore. The prosecution was instituted by the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. On the morning in question the nurse had been out with the child, and brought it in about noon to prepare its food. Before the food was ready the child appears to have begun to cry. The nurse distinctly says that it was not naturally a fretful child, but not only was it waiting for its food, but the little thing was teething. It had cut about six teeth at this time. The defendant met the nurse coming out of her room with the baby, and ordered her to go back, lay the child on the bed, and leave the room, which she did. The scene which followed may be best told in the nurse's own evidence :—

" When I got halfway out he pushed the door against me, forced me out, and then locked himself in, ... I remained out- side the door listening. My mistress was not at home. I heard the defendant slap the child very violently. I heard the baby shriek at each slap which was given her, and I think this continued for five minutes. I did not count the number of slaps, but I should think there were a dozen at least. I went downstairs for about ten minutes. When I went up again the defendant came out, locked the door, and kept the key in his possession. ... It was two hours before I obtained admission. For the whole of those two hours, with the exception of the short time the defendant was in the room himself, the baby was in the room alone. I asked Mr. Moulson to let me have the key, and he told me to go to my work. . . . I was afraid the child would die, but I was not able to get access to the baby until after 2 o'clock, when I found her quiet. . . . Her little hands were terribly swollen and very red. When I took her in my arms she shrank from me as if in pain. I was horrified at the finger marks on the baby's hips and on the lower part of the body. . . . I kept the child in my arms for the remainder of the day. The baby was fretful, as if in pain, and she looked very pale, and did not like to be touched. She did not take her food properly. During the night the child suffered and could not sleep. Next day I showed the marks to Mrs. Still. There were then marks of congested blood under the skin where the finger-marks were to be found."

This evidence remained substantially unshaken on cross-examination,     although the defendant had the good fortune to be represented by the Hon. Bernard Coleridge. It was strongly corroborated. Mrs. Still, a lady lodging in the same house, saw the child next morning, and says: —

"I saw marks on her as if she had been struck with a stick. In one or two places the skin was almost broken — on the edge of the blows. The blows were half an inch or an inch in width. . . . The baby looked very pale and very languid. I considered it had been beaten, and it would have been cruelty to have beaten a 10 year-old child in the same manner. I should think it endangered   the child's life."

One or two witnesses to character endeavoured to show that the reverend defendant was a model   of everything that is good and noble in a father. Two young ladies, friends of the parents, saw the child at a second-floor   window on the afternoon of the assault, when, according to one, "she waved her hand and laughed," and " looked as happy and well as usual." They also alleged that on the next day the baby's hands were as smooth and white as they should be — the one conflict of evidence in the case. There was also an attempt to show that the child had an abnormally delicate skin. A doctor was called for the defendant — one Evans, a surgeon practising at Seaton — who said— " When children are teething they are naturally very irritable. A child with a hasty temper is liable to have its health seriously injured by giving way to that temper. You must use some discipline to correct it." The five Axminster Justices retired for five- and-twenty minutes. They then dismissed the summons, on the ground that "the evidence did not support the very serious charge made against the defendant;" they next proceeded to stultify themselves by ordering that as "Mr. Moulson showed a want of judgment in administering corporal punishment of that kind to a child of such tender years" he should pay the Court fees, amounting to £1 11s.

***

     Following this incident the family moved, perhaps the result of gossip and unpleasantness from neighbours in Devon and when in England they lived first in Chislehurst, Kent, where Geoffrey was born and later in Winchester. The return to South Devon finally happened during the First World War when the family went to live at Redlands, Sidmouth.

     In 1906 Muriel Moulson moved to London and began a three year nurse training at University College Hospital qualifying in 1909, the same year that Faith decided to follow her elder sister’s path when she became a nurse probationer at the East Sussex Hospital, Hastings.  London was home to the United Kingdom’s most prestigious teaching hospitals; young women aspired to be accepted at one or other of them and records show that the hospitals themselves favoured the daughters of clergy as probationers, so Muriel fitted perfectly into an accepted pattern.  The hospital at Hastings was small and provincial with just 86 beds and it’s not clear what factors were instrumental in Faith preferring that to somewhere more exclusive, or whether she had perhaps been refused a place elsewhere.  After qualifying in 1912 she took midwifery training in London before returning once more to Hastings. Accounts of the life of ‘Hope Milroy’ suggest that she turned to nursing to move away from university and an academic life, but there remains the possibility that Faith and Muriel Moulson saw nursing as a safe and immediate way to gain independence and escape family life and whatever problems it had produced for them.

     None of the five sisters ever married and Faith and Muriel both served as military nurses throughout the First World War until 1919. Faith initially offered her services to the British Red Cross Society [BRCS] and worked in France at Sir Henry Norman’s Hospital, transferring to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve in April 1915. Muriel was a member of the Territorial Force Nursing Service attached to No.2 London General Hospital and later also worked in France although the sisters’ paths never crossed professionally while there. By the end of the war Muriel was suffering from symptoms of mitral valve disease of the heart contracted following rheumatic fever nine years earlier and that could have been a contributing factor to her relatively early death in 1945.

     At the start of the war Geoffrey Moulson was a medical student at St. Thomas’s Hospital, but he set aside his training and went to France in 1914 with the BRCS as a ‘dresser,’ returning to his studies in London in 1915 and qualifying as a doctor the following year.  From 1917 he had a very long and distinguished career as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in two world wars and finally retiring in 1954 with the rank of Colonel. In 1919 he was married in Bombay to Irish nurse Eileen Rynd, also a wartime nursing sister in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service and who served on hospital ships, at Mudros, and in India where it seems likely she and Geoffrey met.

     Following the Great War Faith went back to India, first on a temporary posting with Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service for India, and later as Lady Superintendent at the Sassoon Hospital, Poona, where she worked until her return to England in 1935 following the death of her father and her sister Ruth.  India runs as a thread through the lives of the whole family as do houses in Bournemouth and South Devon where most members of the family lived over the decades, and eventually died.  Faith died in Devon in 1964, immortalised as Hope Milroy in ‘Testament of Youth.’ I wonder how she regarded her other life as Hope?

*****

Main Sources:
The National Archives WO399 for service files of Faith and Muriel Moulson and Eileen Rynd.

Drew’s Medical Officers in the British Army 1660-1960, Volume 2, for details of Geoffrey’s career

The Great War at Fairlynch - Hunting Geoffrey Moulson

Testament of Youth - An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-25; Vera Brittain Various publishers over many editions

Testament of Youth, 1979: available on YouTube

Findmypast  For almost everything else!

Dangerously Ill - Life before antibiotics

Mary Watson was a trained nurse and member of the Territorial Force Nursing Service and was mobilised on the 13th August 1914 with her unit, No.5 Southern General Hospital, Portsmouth. In early February 1915 she was admitted to a ward of her hospital suffering from influenza and a chest infection. Unusually, her case notes survive in her service file held at The National Archives (WO399/15365) and give a stark and rather frightening insight into how severe illness could be in the days before antibiotics. Not only was she very near death, but even when improving her full recovery took several months. Two of her brothers died during the Great War, one at Gallipoli and one on the Somme on July 1st, 1916. Her family were fortunate that their daughter survived.

*****

Surname: WATSON 
Rank:  Sister
Unit:  Territorial Force Nursing Service, 5th Southern General Hospital

1915:
5th Southern General Hospital
Disease:  Acute Bronchitis and Influenza

9.2.15
Patient admitted complaining of pain in limbs, severe cough and headache. Temp. 102.6.  Rales all over chest and back. Hyper-resonance.  Influenza contracted in Ward.

10.2.15
Cough very severe, and cyanosed. Temp. 104.2

14.2.15
Temp. 102.8.  Pains in limbs severe.

20.2.15
Cough very distressing. Steam kettle.

25.2.15
Patient has had bad night and cough has been very distressing.

4.3.15
Dullness base of both lungs.

9.3.15
Very bad night. Very blue. Heart dilated. Breathing very bad.

11.3.15
Patient feels a little more comfortable and breathing easier.

15.3.15
No change but patient holding her own.

21.3.15
Complains of sickness and motions foetid.

28.3.15
Cough loose and expectorating freely. Patient feels better.

4.4.15
Respiration keeps easier and has fallen to about 24 [respirations per minute].  Temp. for three days has been but little over 99.

1.4.15
Improving steadily.

18.4.15
Patient doing well. Heart's action steadier and dullness at both bases somewhat less.

23.4.15
Patient able to sit up for 4 hours without distress.  Patient left hospital on 28 April 1915.

*****

     On June 4th, 1915, a memo was sent from the War Office arranging a medical board for Mary Watson. It was hoped that it could be held near her home as she was still not able to travel far. It included the phrase 'I understand she is able to get about a little,' showing that even four months after her initial illness she was still far from well.

     A second nurse, Agnes Swanson, had a similarly severe illness that today could be easily treated with antibiotics. She first became ill in Salonika in November 1918 as the influenza epidemic raged. Eventually she arrived home, but even six months later remained unwell. Some intriguing itemised chemist's bills survive in her service file, showing the range of treatments that were available at the time for ongoing chest infections. We certainly need to give thanks for the discovery of Penicillin and all that came after. Anyone for a creosote capsule?

The National Archives WO399/14835

*****

From Small Acorns Mighty Oaks Grow

Gertrude Madley in France, 1919

     Gertrude Madley was born in Wales in December 1892, living most of her early life in Llanelli.  Her story shows the changes that were taking place in recruitment to the military nursing services by the middle of the war.  When Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service was formed in 1902 applicants had to be well-educated, of high social status, and trained in one of a small, select group of prestigious hospitals. As the war progressed and increasing numbers of nurses were needed for military hospitals, the net had to be cast wider to find large numbers of staff nurses and nursing sisters for QAIMNS Reserve.

     The 1911 census shows Gertrude Madley as an eighteen year old, living with her family in Llanelli.  Her father’s occupation was given as ‘tinplate rollerman’ and she herself was working as a factory hand in a tin plate factory.  She was not destined to remain as a factory worker and in 1913 she started a three year nurse training course at Swansea General and Eye Hospital before joining Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve as a Staff Nurse in September 1916.  At just twenty-three years of age she was one of the youngest nurses to serve with the Reserve during the Great War, the age limit of twenty-five having been lowered as the shortage of trained nurses was so great.  She initially served in Malta before going to France in 1918, and was finally demobilised in May 1920.  Her report from No.35 General hospital, dated 30 April 1920 reads:

Staff Nurse Madley served with this unit from 15.6.19 to the present date leaving on demobilisation.  Her general professional ability, power of administration and initiative is quite up to the standard of her rank.  Good tempered, tactful, always obliging and helpful. Devoted to her patients.  Her influence generally is all for good.  Nurse Madley has had charge of a surgical ward and has fulfilled her duties of Sister in a most satisfactory manner.

     Gertrude Madley never married and during the Second World War worked as a Chief Nurse with the American Red Cross at the Harvard Field Hospital Unit, Salisbury. An article written by her can be found here:

My Assignment as a Red Cross Nurse

     It seems almost impossible that this could be the same person as the shy young woman in the photo above, and after her demobilisation she must have spent many years in the USA between the wars. However, the General Nursing Council Register for 1942 confirms both her training in Swansea and her appointment with the American Red Cross, so certainly one and the same.  There are many other references to Gertrude Madley on the web and she appears to have become a prominent 'American' nurse of the time. She died in April 1990 at the age of ninety-seven.  What a great example of a young woman from a humble, working-class background who forged an independent and inspiring life as a professional nurse.

Unknown Warriors

     When Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front* was published by William Blackwood in 1915, the author, Kate (Evelyn) Luard, had to remain anonymous.  As a member of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve it was not acceptable for her to comment publicly on her work with the British Expeditionary Force in France. As a result, the book shed its copyright restraints some time ago, allowing thousands of readers to enjoy one of the few accurate accounts of the work of a trained military nurse during the Great War.  In 1930 Kate Luard published her second book, Unknown Warriors, under her own name, picking up where she left off in 1915 and completing her wartime story.  That book only appeared in one edition and over time has become a rare entity, difficult to track down and increasingly costly to buy.  In this Great War Centenary year, members of the author’s family decided to take up the challenge and re-publish Unknown Warriors and by doing so bring joy to many people who have so far been denied the pleasure of this further account.

     The typesetting of the new edition matches the original and gives it an old-fashioned authenticity, but there are also many additions which offer extra detail and information. A new introduction by Professor Christine Hallett and Tim Luard explains the background to the author’s personal and working life and also to her family connections in Essex. An index and bibliography have been added together with photographs and a glossary of terms which may otherwise be unfamiliar to readers.

     The book is composed of letters sent by Kate Luard to her family in Essex, recounting her life and experiences during wartime on the Western Front. She was an exemplary nurse, admired and appreciated by her colleagues and with the resilience to cope with everything that war threw up. Although there are now a number of diaries and accounts available written by the untrained nurse – the ‘VAD’ – those of trained military nurses are rare and must be valued. This book describes in plain terms the difficulties of both nurses and patients, the desperate conditions, and also the periods of rest and pleasure. Much of her wartime service was in Casualty Clearing Stations including the Advanced Abdominal Centre (No.32 CCS) at Brandhoek during the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917, working in both the busiest and most dangerous conditions that a nurse could encounter.  Her words are never exaggerated or overblown, nor do they underplay the personal and professional difficulties that she faced. It is perhaps one of the very best examples among First World War nursing  accounts of ‘How it  really was.’

     The final ‘Postscript’ chapter is a wonderful extra and includes previously unpublished letters both from the author to family members and also from her close relatives in reply which provide a keen insight into how the war was viewed in rural England. On one occasion her brother Percy wrote, ‘Your letters continue to be thrilling …’ and suggests they would make an excellent book, and later, ‘Your letters are absolutely IT … and they fill me with awe and wonder and admiration and joy …’.

I have to agree with him!

*****

Unknown Warriors: The Letters of Kate Luard, RRC and Bar, Nursing Sister in France 1914-1918
Caroline and John Stevens (Editors)
The History Press, August 2014
ISBN-10: 0750959223
ISBN-13: 978-0750959223

*Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914-1915
If you've never read it, then probably a good idea to start at the beginning with this first book, available in many inexpensive printed editions and also as a free download on the web via the link.

After the Crimson Field

7 General Hospital, Malassises, Imperial War Museum

     According to the Economist there have been more than 25,000 books and scholarly articles written about the United Kingdom's part in  the Great War since 1918. I can't vouch for the figure, but it seems perfectly plausible to me. Most relate to the soldiers' story, to strategy and tactics, to organisation and administration and every detail of life in various armies during the conflict. If you need to know how a soldier enlisted, what he was paid, how he was transported, fed, equipped; how he washed and relaxed and 'went over the top' there's plenty of choice on where to find the answer, in official records, books, film, TV and increasingly on the web. If official accounts become a bit dry they can be supplemented by thousands of surviving first-hand accounts and memoirs. There must currently be hundreds of historians and researchers of the Great War who would have no difficulty at all in instantly giving chapter and verse on all aspects of a soldiers' life.

     This is far from the situation in relation to any area of women's service. A relatively tiny number of books have been published on nursing during the Great War and the majority of those are personal accounts in which the facts cannot always be verified or substantiated. In recent years female academics have tried to close the gap a little but however well-researched, the results are often unappealing to the general public and inaccessible due to the high cover prices set for the academic market. These books also appear to turn their back entirely on giving the same grass-roots information about the fine detail of nurses' service which can be so easily found in similar books relating men within a military setting. The result is that to the question 'Can you recommend a good book about nurses' the answer will invariably settle first around Lyn Macdonald's 'Roses of No Man's Land,' Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth' and occasionally something else that probably doesn't even relate to a British nurse's experience of war. It seems almost impossible to find the answer to same questions of organisation and administration relating to women's service that are so clearly defined for men.

     The fine detail of military nurses' service during the Great War is largely lost - it's a yawning gap waiting to be filled. In some respects you could fill it with anything and few people would be any the wiser. There would be few opponents to a statement that nurses earned £20 a year, or £50 a year or £200 a year because it's information that's hidden and difficult to find. There would be few opponents to comments that Great War nurses could marry, or maybe couldn't marry, or if they could marry they had to leave - or perhaps they were allowed to stay? And did VADs actually spend their time outside washing bandages or collecting sticks in the woods? Who is there who knows? So when the BBC decided to commission 'The Crimson Field' they had a gap to fill and unfortunately it was a gap that to the viewing public was an 'unknown.' They had the freedom to fill it with whatever they felt was suitable regardless of whether it was historically correct. And by 'historically correct' I don't mean the tiny things like fine details of uniform and kit, but the basic knowledge of what life was like for nurses and doctors and how hospitals worked in France at that time. What's missing from the programme is any deeper understanding of the nurses and hospitals - their foundations are missing and experience and integrity have been removed.

     To those who say 'it's only drama' I'd reply that it's historical drama and has been heralded by the BBC as an important part of their Great War Centenary programming. Because of that it has a duty to be as historically accurate as possible. To those who say that it's no different to believing that 'Holby City' is an accurate portrayal or that crime drama fails to reflect modern policing, I insist that there is an enormous difference. Hospital life and police procedure today are part of our current knowledge. If we watch modern hospital drama we have experience to judge it by, either our own or that of our friends and family. We can dismiss what is unbelievable because we have the personal knowledge of what it's really like. In 'The Crimson Field' the BBC have produced a programme that has filled an existing gap in history that is outside people's experience and they have filled that gap with stories that could not and would not have happened.

     Because of the high regard in which the BBC is held, the programme has made itself historically correct and has set a model for the future. It has given a representation of nurses, doctors and hospitals that will now be followed, honoured and repeated for decades. Mention of the programme is already being used to give credence to many serious centenary projects and books in order to boost visitors or sales regardless of whether it has any relevance or validity.  In my opinion it has set the serious research of nursing in the Great War back to a point where there may be no hope of ever resurrecting it - why bother in the future when it can be wiped out at a stroke and with such ease?

The 'Volunteer Nurse'

     With the screening of 'The Crimson Field' on TV, there seems to have arisen some confusion over the 'Volunteer Nurse.' This morning I came across a newly-published edition of Olive Dent's book 'A VAD in France,' first published in 1917 by Grant Richards, and for some years available in new editions or as a free download from the web.**   I was rather shocked that not only is it being promoted as some sort of spin-off from 'The Crimson Field' complete with a cover illustration strongly suggestive that its contents are related, but that the original title has been changed to suit the publisher. It seems an incredibly arrogant stance for a publisher to take, and I have to wonder whether they think the change in title will fool the unwary into believing that it's a different book to the one that can be found free elsewhere. At the very least it shows dishonesty and a complete lack of integrity.

A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front

     But back to the 'Volunteer.'  When women joined a Voluntary Aid Detachment in the United Kingdom, they received no pay, but were provided with board and lodging if working away from home. When they went overseas, the majority found themselves in a very different position. VADs who worked overseas in British hospitals under War Office control were paid. They received a basic salary of £20 a year, with extra allowances which were extremely generous, and in total added up to more than £115 a year in payment or in kind. It put their annual salary on a par with, or above, many women workers in the UK. To imply that they were working as 'angels and heroines' for nothing is entirely wrong. In the recently published 'Dorothea's War,' the wartime diary of VAD Dorothea Crewdson,* she was constantly surprised at the size of her monthly pay-packet. On the 4th August 1915 she wrote in her diary:

Pay night and we have all received a monstrously and wonderfully large sum of money … The Sisters of course have different pay and more of it. We all feel robbers of the Matron as our salary for the month comes to more than £10 and we only expected £20 a year.

On September 21st she continues:

All the night staff were paid yesterday morning after breakfast.  Matron dispensed coins, done up and packed as usual. VADs got fr 302.75 which is more than £10. Pay is a wonderful mystery and seems always more than one ever expected.

And even when allowances for heating and lighting were discontinued the following year, she had no complaints:

Pay night yesterday and we got fr 334.90, the last big pay we shall have before allowances are cut down. But I am glad as I think it is a waste of English money to pay us all so much.

     So whenever you see VADs overseas patted on the head for doing their job for free, please bear in mind that they did not. They were paid appropriately for their work and they well understood the value of their pay.

*Dorothea's War: Edited by Richard Crewdson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013
** If you'd rather not pay for your e-book, Olive Dent's original text of 'A VAD in France' is available free:
A VAD in France

Unknown Warriors - The Letters of Kate Luard

There are probably many people who will be delighted to hear that a new edition of 'Unknown Warriors' is due out in August this year. Kate Luard's first book was published anonymously in 1916, and because of that it's been available in the public domain for some time. The continuation and sequel, 'Unknown Warriors,' (1930) has remained out of print for decades, and although still in copyright, this new edition is the result of much hard work and devotion by members of her family. It will be published by The History Press in August, and promotion of the new edition is due to start in May. With so few copies of the original available, this will surely be a welcome addition to many bookshelves.

UNKNOWN WARRIORS
The letters of Kate Luard, RRC and Bar, Nursing Sister in France 1914-1918
ISBN 978-0-7509-5922-3

The Intelligence Officer

This is part of an account written by Sister Catherine Black while working at a Casualty Clearing Station in 1916. Born in Ireland and trained at The London Hospital, Whitechapel, she was later the private nurse to King George V until his death in 1936.

Catherine Black - 'Blackie'

*****

     The German wounded had exactly the same treatment as our own, except that they were not allowed to speak to one another, and we were always ordered to place them in beds as far apart as possible. I can only remember one departure from this rule, and that was at a C.C.S. just behind the lines. A German prisoner, an officer of high rank, was brought in slightly wounded, and given a bed in the corner of my ward. On the day following his admission the British medical officer in charge of the station sent for me and told me that he had some instructions of the utmost importance for me. A patient, who would appear to be a German officer, would be brought to my ward later that day and I was for once to reverse all previous orders and put him in the bed next to the prisoner. He would in reality be an officer from the British Intelligence Department seeking certain valuable information, but I must be most careful to keep up the illusion. Although he would not, of course, be wounded, I must nurse him in the usual way and allow him every opportunity for getting acquainted with the German in the next bed. The Sister on night duty was to be given the same instructions as I. No one else in the station was to know anything, for the entire success of the plan depended on its secrecy.

     Late that afternoon another convoy came in and among them was a German officer.  His uniform was torn and covered with mud, and when he was carried in by two ambulance men he seemed so obviously ill and in great pain that I thought at first sight he could not possibly be the one for whose arrival I was prepared. Then he gave me the signal that I had been told to look for, and I ordered the stretcher-bearers to put him into the empty bed next to the German prisoner who had been admitted the day before.  Then began an elaborate game of make-believe. Never on any stage have I seen such an actor as that Intelligence Officer! His part was carried out to perfection. Not only did he completely deceive the German next to him as to his credentials, but he even hoodwinked the nurses and orderlies into believing him a badly wounded man. The Night Sister and I backed him up for all we were worth. At the proper times we put screens round his bed, carefully dressed and re-bandgaged his imaginary wounds to the most realistic exclamations of pain and protests in broken English. When he appeared to be suffering very much we carried out the pretence of giving him injections. Every day the whole performance of nursing him was carried out with scrupulous care, the only difference between him and the other patients being that no orderlies were allowed to attend him; Sister and I did everything for him ourselves. To avoid creating suspicion, we carried out exactly the same procedure in the case of the bona fide German officer. Very soon there were whispered conversations between the two beds, but we took good care to be out of earshot when that happened.

     On the fourth day the German officer was transferred to a prison camp, and our mysterious patient was 'evacuated.' We never knew his destination, but a week or two later I received unofficial information that the plan had been a great success. Somehow or other I linked this up with the news that our troops had taken an important German position.

King's Nurse, Beggar's Nurse, Catherine Black, published by Hurst and Blackett, London, 1939

The Nurse, the German, Spying and Sinn Fein

National Army Museum

 Attributing the labels of 'angel' and 'heroine' to nurses who served during the Great War seems increasingly common. I've always thought that although 'heroine' may on occasions be accurate, 'angel' never is. Nursing sisters were well trained and experienced over many years, and they relished the opportunity of their skills being publicly recognised. Even the untrained VAD learnt quickly, and found a position as a full member of the nursing team in hospitals at home and overseas. They were not angels, not ethereal creatures, not myth or legend; they were a normal range of earthly women, good, bad and indifferent. As one extreme, I've recently come across the story of a nurse whose behaviour definitely went against the grain and left her in a lot of trouble. The name of the nurse has been removed (for now) but I can add that she came from Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo, and trained as a nurse in Belfast.  I first noticed her through a brief entry in the official war diary of the Matron-in-Chief in France and Flanders on June 11th, 1918:

Received a telephone message from the A.A.G. ...  Found that he wished to let me know that a certain S/Nurse of the name of W___  Q.A.I.M.N.S.R. had been found carrying on correspondence with the enemy.  She was thought to be a Sinn Feiner, and it was probable that she would be tried by Court Martial.  He wished it to be entirely confidential until the official information came to Headquarters.  He did not wish it talked about.

This nurse has a service file at The National Archives and it gives extensive details of what led up to her arrest. Space only permits a few extracts from witness statements and letters, and some of the evidence produced seems laughable today, but it does show how even little events could start a major alert and have far-reaching consequences. The Staff Nurse was at this time working at No.11 Stationary Hospital, Rouen, and many of the witness statements were given by patients being treated in the hospital at the time who had watched, followed and taken note.

*****

SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE in the case of Staff Nurse M. W ___, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, No.11 Stationary Hospital :

[There were several witness statements, all broadly similar]

I have seen Sister W___ drop a match-box at the back of Tent 55 and return to the ward. A few minutes afterwards I observed a German Prisoner of War come to this spot and pick up the match-box. A few days afterwards Sister W___ asked the patients in the Ward for a match-box, which was given to her. That same evening she was seen dodging between the huts and was seen to put two packets of “Commander” cigarettes behind the Sisters’ Bunk. I and two other fellow patients searched for the match-box but could not find it. We found the cigarettes and a stick with the word ‘Pudding’ written on it. A few days after, she was seen by witness and another patient hiding twelve bars of chocolate and a tin of cigarettes under tarred paper and tarpaulin sheet at the side of the hut.  I took the articles found to Major Chappel ... [Later] we noticed Sister W___ with another Sister coming across to this same spot later in the evening, about 9 p.m.  The other Sister walked between the huts and Sister W___ went to the same spot and then went up to the top of the extension and back again and went away.'

After similar evidence was given by another witness, the accused asked:

 ‘Did you suspect me of being a German spy?” to which he answered ‘I could not say.’  
‘Had you any suspicions at all?’  
‘When I saw you drop the box, I thought there was something suspicious about it.’

And from a Sergeant supervising a German Labour Company:

At 4.30 p.m. it was reported by Ptes. Roberts and Doughty, 944 Artizan Coy., that they had seen a German Prisoner of War creeping towards the Sisters’ Hut.  They then went to the place where they had seen the Prisoner of War go, and found a match-box and part of another with a letter in each. They handed these letters to me … I read the letters. I could recognise the German prisoner of war that went to the hut.  On one occasion I saw Sister W___ wave two handkerchiefs, green and white, coming down from the farther end of the Extension Hospital towards 55 Ward. She waved these two handkerchiefs in a peculiar manner, one down and one across. I saw no answering signal …

The German who had been recognised by the Sergeant was Corporal Max Ehmke:

Memo from Major Vernon Dupree, Captain and Adjutant:

I beg to report that P.W. No.15 Cpl Ehmke, Max, has been detected in writing letters to a Nurse in No.11 Stationary Hospital. The letters, which are now in my possession, were enclosed in match boxes and discovered by my Escort.  The Nurse, I believe, is under arrest.

And a subsequent memo from H. A. Lash, Captain and Adjutant, 15 Labour Group, Auxiliary Camp, Quevilly.

I understand from Major Dupree that P/W No.15 Cpl. EHMKE used to work at No.11 Stationary Hospital, but has not worked there for some weeks. He is now working at No.6 but he managed to get letters through by means of another German prisoner.  Apparently from the enclosed letters, another nurse is corresponding with a German prisoner in the 82nd P of W Company. I have instructed Major Dupree to recall the Cpl. EHMKE from work, and place him under close arrest so as to prevent him corresponding with the Nurse in question by means of his comrade.  Major Dupree has made a thorough search of Cpl. EHMKE and his belongings to see if he can find any letters written by the Nurse to the German prisoner, but has failed to do so, the German has told him that he has burnt all the letters.

Some short extracts from the German prisoner's letters are below. The originals are quite long and rather touching, though if one believes that there might have been spying involved, they could be looked on perhaps as a means of using extreme flattery and amorous advances to soften up a lamb for the slaughter! They are written from 'Jim' to 'Una' which both appear to be pseudonyms.

11/6/18
Dearest Una
When I was marching here tonight I was full of hope to get a letter from you dear, but I arrived at our Camp, I learned that the men had not found one. This news struck me as a blow and you can imagine how great my disappointment was.  I feel really uneasy about you and am wondering what has happened to you. … I risk to send you this note … Oh dearest, I could never bear, when you had been discovered, I feel responsible for it …  Perhaps I happen to see you tomorrow morning and then I shall be comforted seeing that you are still well
All my love dearest, Yours, Jim

12/6/18
Dearest Una
I too, cannot express my feelings, especially after having read your dear letters of 10th and 11th. When I saw you passing this afternoon I got absolutely shocked at you. I realised how much you are suffering. And the same I noticed from your letters. Oh Dearest, my heart is bleeding. I cannot bear seeing you suffer. I know a great deal of your sufferings are caused by the circumstances. I have experienced myself how one feels when one is suspected and watched by everyone. I can quite realise what it means for you to go and fetch the letters night for night, and always the fear of being discovered. Oh dearest, only a heroine can do that, but also a heroine has no superhuman strength. Therefore in order to prevent you having an absolute breakdown, we have to stop hour correspondence, Thus, this will be my last letter ... 

And this is part of one of the newspaper cuttings found with the match-boxes, and which raised suspicions of a connection to Sinn Fein:

DUBLIN DEPORTATIONS
SINN FEIN DEMONSTRATIONS
A strange scene was witnessed in Dublin on Sunday, when 450 aliens, German and Austrian civilians, who had been interned in Oldcastle Camp, County Meath, were deported. They arrived in the City by a special train, and a special steamer took them from the Liffey.  They carried a great quantity of luggage, which included musical instruments of different kinds.  A large number of female relatives gathered outside the railway station and cheered the deportees, and waved Sinn Fein and green flags …

AND THE FINAL RESULT ...
On the 13th August 1918 Staff Nurse W___ was recalled to England, the Director-General of Medical Services stating in a memo to the Adjutant General:

There would not appear to be sufficient evidence to warrant a trial by Court Martial, but I think we are justified in dismissing her from the Service. Do you concur?

And his reply:

I notice that this nurse’s contract apparently expires today. I am therefore of opinion that the contract should not be renewed. I do not think it would be desirable to dismiss this Staff Nurse because political capital without a doubt would be made out of it. I should imagine from the newspaper cuttings she was sending to the German prisoner that she is a Sinn Feiner and after you have taken the necessary action I think you should pass the papers to the D.M.I. [Directorate of Military Intelligence] as it may be desirable to keep an eye on this lady’s movements in the future. I may be wrong but it seems quite possible that Miss W___ may be a dangerous person and I do not quite like the combination of Sinn Fein sentiments and love for a German, the natural corollary of which appears to me to be hatred of England etc. etc.

She was transferred to Boulogne and at first refused to leave - her Matron was given firm instructions to supervise her embarkation for England:

On informing Miss W___ of the orders she was very angry – said she was being blamed for the recent bombing near here, and that was why she was being moved, and that such blame was because she was Irish. She at first refused to go, stated she wished to resign at once, and go straight back to Ireland, and that she would not report at the War Office or do any duty in Home Hospitals.  Also that when she arrived in Ireland she intended to place the matter in the hands of those in Authority she knew, and, to use her expression, ‘have the whole matter thrashed out.’ On my pointing out the uselessness of not obeying orders she consented to go...

Her later life is not detailed in her file. She worked first in Glasgow, and the following year is believed to have returned to Ireland. Was this all a storm in a teacup, or spying; a love affair; a nurse being kind to prisoners, or being taken advantage of by the enemy? At least it's not the story of a nurse pretending to be an angel.