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| D/DLI 7/805/102 J.B.E. Simmons, a soldier of a Durham Light Infantry Home Service
Battalion, guarding a prisoner in a hospital bed, two nurses, a German prisoner
of war, and a Canadian soldier, Sergeant W. Wade, 1914-1918 |
Mention nurses during the First World War and most people would
probably think of the Red Cross and St John’s Voluntary Aid Detachment - even
if they might not know the full name.
VADs were volunteers who had typically had little or no previous medical
training. However, the VADs were just a
part of the nursing services during the First World War, as we have been
learning from the research that we’ve been doing.
Last week I wrote about Cissy Spence and the “trying circumstances”
under which she won the Military Medal.
Cissy was not a VAD but a “professional” nurse. She worked in Darlington and Wolverhampton
Hospitals before the war and was part of the Civil Hospital Reserve of the
Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS). The QAIMNS were founded in 1902 with the
intention of providing regular nursing support to the Army. It was soon realised this standing army of
nurses was not attracting enough recruits so Civil Hospitals were encouraged to
allow their nursing staff to be used by the War Office in time of need. This meant that trained nurses were on
standby and Cissy set foot in France on 8 August 1914, before the majority of
male soldiers.
Also founded in 1902, the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service
(QARNNS) provided similar support for the Navy.
While researching the Five Sisters Memorial in York Minister we came
across the story of Louisa Charlotte Chamberlain, who family lived in Eastgate:
She served aboard the Hospital Ship China and was killed by a mine off
Scarpa Flow along with a dental surgeon from County Durham, Herbert Myers
Marshall:
Another area that I’ve been particularly interested in is the Scottish
Women’s Hospitals. Founded by Elsie
Inglis, these hospitals employed women doctors as well as nurses to look after
wounded soldiers. They had strong links
to the pre-war suffragist group the Women’s Union of Suffrage Societies and the
Sunderland Press Secretary of the NUWSS posted a long account of the work they
carried out in Serbia (Sunderland Echo, 20 March 1915). I haven’t been able to track down any female
doctors who worked for the SWH (yet!) but Durham at War does feature an orderly
from Hartlepool that served with the organisation:
Red Cross database of VADs:
More information about the QAIMNS
The Scottish Women’s Hospitals
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