Naval Nurses - The Problems with the Records

Royal Naval Hospital, Granton [IWM Q18930]

     With an increasing number of records being made available online, it's now possible to find service records for almost every First World War soldier, sailor and female worker as long as they've survived both the Blitz and the rather random 'weeding' process of previous decades. In addition to soldiers' service records which can be found on genealogy sites such as Ancestry and Find My Past, The National Archives have digitised and made available a whole range of records relating to personnel who served in the First World War and it's been made easy to search for individuals and to download any available record for a fee.

     However, one exception are the records of members of Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service who served between 1894 and 1929, the majority being records of nurses with wartime service. These records are held on individual pages of large ledgers and I have to admit they were originally created in a rather slapdash manner, often a single record ranging over several pages in different volumes, squeezed into tiny gaps and with different women appearing on a single page. The Royal Navy were certainly keen on economising on paper.  In total, there are records for 244 members of the regular QARNNS, and another 394 for members of the wartime Reserve.  So not an enormous number, but it seems that The National Archives have decided not to make these available as single records and I can only assume that's because it's simply too much time and trouble for too little eventual financial return. Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service is doomed to stay firmly shut in the cupboard.

     So in answer to the question of how you negotiate the records to find out about great-aunt Gertie's daring deeds, I have to say it's only with the greatest difficulty.  When I asked a question on Twitter recently about the possibility individual records being made available, I was told 'Hello, thanks for your query - the nursing service register is available to download here:

Nursing Service Register, Royal Navy

Unfortunately, whoever's in charge of the Twitter feed at TNA isn't familiar with the records as that link only gets you to a small portion of the whole.  If you click on the link you'll notice that even this small part adds up to a download of more than 500Mb and your chances of finding Aunt Gertie are pretty slim as in addition there are another eight files available which you haven't been told about. There is another way if you search hard enough, and this TNA guide leads you on to the full range:

Looking for records of a Royal Navy Nurse?

     Before you start, note the warning on the page 'Please be aware that these are very large files and only suitable for download on a fast and unlimited broadband connection.'  That's OK though because we've all got one of those these days, haven't we?  Having attempted the downloads, failed, contacted TNA for help on a couple of occasions and grown a few more grey hairs, you're now the proud possessor of eleven very large .pdf documents totalling just under 2 gigabytes in size, but whereabouts is Auntie Gertie?

     There are rather rough indexes to the volumes, so you can browse through the pages of each one to see if you can find her, but the problems are not nearly over.  Some women have entries on as many as five different pages, covering three different .pdf downloads and I would bet my week's supply of doughnuts that there are no more than a handful of nurses who might be considered easy to find. I would challenge members of TNA's staff who are familiar with records in general to find Gertie among that lot without going off sick with stress; the general public are in a far worse position.

Note that Phoebe Gill's record started on a previous page, and is then continued in another volume of the register - a total of three different pages over two volumes [ADM104/163/1/folio 48] *

     Downloading 2Gb of data to find a couple of pages on Aunt Gertie is simply not practical, and anyway it just doesn't work in practice.  So wouldn't it be helpful if TNA could at least produce an index giving the volume and page references for each woman thus reducing the downloads needed to the minimum?  It would be even better if they could split the .pdfs into single pages and make each woman's pages available online as a single download. Sitting here in my little back room I've managed to create an index of individuals without much difficulty and I can whip off the pages I need using the simplest online tools - it's really not that hard!

     I asked again at yesterday's 'webinar' if there were any plans to index or digitise these records and was told that there was nothing in the foreseeable future. As far as TNA are concerned, Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service is destined to stay firmly locked in that cupboard.

*****

* Image fee paid to TNA for online use of documents

Edith Hope, Naval Nursing Sister

I've always rather ignored Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service in favour of the Army, but earlier this month wrote about their service records which are at The National Archives.  I've now decided to index them, and although brief and scrappy at times, with none of the correspondence contained within the QAIMNS records, there are real gems to be found there. As I've previously transcribed the Royal Red Cross Register,* some of the names are familiar to me, but it's interesting to read additions in the service records which are not included in the RRC Register or London Gazette. One naval nursing sister, Edith Hope, joined in 1913, worked continuously until December 1929 when she retired from the service at the age of 49, and she received the RRC (2nd Class) in 1920 while working in the Royal Naval Sick Quarters, Shotley.  As soon as the Second World War started she decided to rejoin, and served from early 1940 until May 1946, by which time she was 66 years of age. Her ARRC was upgraded to the First Class award on 2nd June 1943, but no citation or details exist in the RRC Register - it just appears to be a general award for wartime service.  However, her naval service record is more forthcoming, stating:

To be a member of the Royal Red Cross for outstanding zeal, patience and cheerfulness and for courage and whole-hearted devotion to duty 

which is a very good addition to the other available information, and gives a much fuller picture of the woman herself.  The number of QARNNS service records is relatively small, but they add a great deal to the knowledge of military nurses of the last century. 

*Just to add a reminder that these records are now searchable on FindMyPast 

A rose by any other name?

     I've recently been browsing through service records of members of Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service (and its predecessors).  The records are held in ledgers very similar to those held by the Royal Navy for all their officers and ratings, and although brief they offer insights into the women's personalities and capabilities not present in the thicker service files of members of the army's nursing service. They are judged on conduct, ability, zeal, tact in dealing with both staff and patients, and above all, 'temperament.'  The first four categories are marked on a scale covering 'poor' through 'average' and 'satisfactory,' to 'very good,' 'exemplary' and 'exceptional.'  Temperament, however, is a different matter. The varied and many words used to describe these women's 'temperament' is astonishing, but they give a wonderful view of the changes that can occur during a woman's long career, and how people's perception of character can vary. But to sum up, they were:

     Quiet, reliable, cheerful (so often 'cheerful'), pleasant, bright, energetic, equable (also 'very equable' and 'extremely equable'), alert, keen, ladylike, calm, willing, adaptable, contented and thorough.
Some were diffident, subdued, unassertive and changeable; placid, variable, reserved and moody. Some were many of these things at different times, or seen by one reporting officer as 'firm and thorough' while another viewed them as 'inclined to be domineering.'  A few were reported as 'casual and untidy,' 'not dignified,' or 'somewhat pessimistic and argumentative' and 'occasionally sarcastic.'  Whatever their strengths and weaknesses, for those women who reached the heady ranks of Matron, almost without fail their final assessments reported them as 'quiet and dignified' which seemed to be the most sought after trait of personality. Age may not have wearied them, but it did turn them into proper ladies.