Page 40 - QARANC Vol 18 No 2 2020

38 The Gazette QARANC Association
Nursing Service Reserve. Princess Christian nurses were given a silver brooch to wear. This started a tradition of Army nurses wearing tippet medals.
Princess Christian Nurses were part of the 2000 strong nursing contingent from many parts of the world serving in South Africa between 1899 and 1902. Most of the nurses would have benefited from the Nightingale style of training, and all the British nurses had trained for at least three years and had been carefully vetted by a committee chaired by Princess Christian. Miss Shore was deployed to the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Deelfontein from April 1900 to September 1900. Some of the nurses going to South Africa were relatively young and inexperienced but Miss Shore, then aged 35, had seven years nursing and midwifery experience.
The Imperial Yeomanry Hospital was unusual in that it was paid for by public fundraising and staffed by a mixture of military and civilian doctors. The hospital had 40 Army nurses allocated to it. By the middle of June 1900 provision had been made for the accommodation of nearly 800 patients and it was subsequently enlarged to take 1000 patients. Army nurses now took over much of the bedside care as envisaged by Florence Nightingale.
Army nursing had now developed as an entity, however, there is little written material to help us visualise what duties Miss Shore herself would have undertaken. We know from the accounts of other nurses, that they were involved in triaging the sick and wounded; helping patients with hygiene needs; helping ensure patients had adequate nutrition and the correct diets; they worked in the operating theatres and did much of the dressing of wounds. They supervised the orderlies and cared for the seriously sick patients themselves. They wrote letters for the patients and tried to find such comforts for them as were available. Enteric fevers were commonplace and sadly nurses also died of disease in this campaign.
The Army Nursing Service created a structure which allowed for flexibility as to how nurses were deployed, and many moved from hospital to hospital. From the medal rolls it appears that Miss Shore stayed in Deelfontein for all of her time in South Africa. The medal rolls confirm that nurses who served in South Africa were entitled to the same campaign medals as the soldiers - The Queen’s South Africa Medal, and the Kings South Africa Medal for those serving towards the end of the war.
Florence Nightingale Shore sitting in her garden
The mix of doctors and nurses with military experience and those with experience of working in civilian hospitals led to a blending of skills and expertise and in the subsequent reviews of medical support during the Boer War these ideas were put forward and many changes were made to Army nursing. Shortly after the end of the Boer War, in 1902, the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service was formed. In 1908 the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve) was formed, and Miss Shore transferred into the new reserve service. She was one of the many veteran Boer War nurses who went on to serve during World War 1.
Very sadly Miss Shore was found with her head badly battered in a railway carriage on a journey from London to Hastings in January 1920. She died later in hospital. Her assailant was never found.
World War 1 and 2 presented
by Alison Spires and
Rebekah Sloane Mather
Mary Chavasse, known as May, was one of six brothers and sisters and of the six Chavasse siblings five served overseas during the First World War. The involvement of whole families was not uncommon.
Christopher and Noel were identical twins and both studied at Trinity College, Oxford as well as representing England at the 1908 Olympic Games. After Oxford, Christopher studied for Holy Orders and was ordained in 1909. On the outbreak of war, he volunteered as an Army Chaplain and by the end of the month he was involved in the retreat from Mons. Wounded at Cambrai in 1917 and awarded the Military Cross and Croix-de-Guerre, he entered Germany with the 9th Corps in 1918 and left the Army in 1919 with the rank of Second Class Chaplain. He later became master of St Peter’s College, Oxford.
After Oxford Noel studied medicine at the University of Liverpool and Royal Southern Hospital under Sir Robert Jones. After the outbreak of the war,
he went to France as an Army doctor attached to the Liverpool Scottish Regiment. There he won the Military Cross at Hooge in May 1915, and the Victoria Cross at Guillemont in August 1916. He was seriously wounded by a shell on 2 August 1917 while attending to wounded men in no-man’s land and subsequently died on 4 August being buried at Brandhoek Military Cemetery. He was posthumously awarded a second Victoria Cross and became the only man to receive two Victoria Crosses in the First World War. Whilst he is the most well-known of the Chavasse siblings, we shouldn’t let the fame of one outshine the contribution of others.
Francis Bernard Chavasse, studied Natural Sciences at Balliol College, Oxford. At the time of the outbreak of the war, he was near completion of the medical course at Liverpool University. Upon qualification as a doctor, he was sent to Egypt, then to France with the 17th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment. He was wounded and awarded the Military Cross.
Aidan Chavasse was due to go to Wycliffe Hall to read theology, but his plans were interrupted by the outbreak of t war. He went to France with 11th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment, and later transferred to 17th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment, of which his brother Bernard was Medical Officer. During a mission to inspect German wire near Sanctuary Wood in July 1917 he was wounded in the thigh. He sent his patrol back to safety and took cover in a shell hole. Subsequent attempts to find him, including three separate attempts by his brother Bernard, were unsuccessful and Aidan was never found.
Mary Laeta Chavasse known as May, and Marjorie Chavasse, were identical twin sisters born in 1886 at Oxford. Early in the war both May and Marjorie volunteered at a convalescent hospital for soldiers at Rednal, Worcestershire, run by their Aunt Frances. May enrolled as a VAD and travelled out to France in March 1915 to work as a ward maid with the Liverpool Merchants’ Hospital.
Following the outbreak of the First World War the British Red Cross formed the Joint War Committee with the Order of St John. They worked together to pool their fundraising activities and resources. They organised Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) at home and abroad, which were of vital importance in providing aid to naval and military forces during the war.
Members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) became known