Page 28 - QARANC Vol 16 No 1 2018

26 QARANC THE GAZETTE
Things are not always what they seem!
I am currently working on the QARANC archives in the Museum of Military Medicine, helping to prepare them for the move to Cardiff. Recently I came across an interesting item that was described in the catalogue as a napkin embroidered in WW1. When I took it out to look at it, the signatures, which had been embroidered onto it, seemed to have come from the Boer War (1899-1902).
In 1989, this item was mentioned on BBC Radio’s Charlie Chester’s Soapbox. He described it as a WW1 relic which had belonged to a member of the QAIMNS on a hospital ship evacuating wounded from the Dardanelles, and that it was a napkin signed by the ship’s officers and subsequently embroidered. The BBC put the owner in touch with the museum, and he kindly donated it.
When it came to the museum, the gentleman donating it wrote, “It was given to my wife by (I think) her aunt who embroidered this cloth; her name is on the cloth (Hayhurst). I did have the diary which would have given you dates and name of the hospital ship coming from the Dardanelles; unfortunately when I moved house to my present OAP bungalow it must have been lost”.
The cloth appears to be linen and is square in shape, but much larger than would be expected for a napkin. In each of the corners and in the centre there are signatures which have been embroidered. There is also the pennant of the White Star Line. In the photograph a small hole can be seen on the staff of the pennant. When I looked closely I could see that it was a deliberate hole, sewn around the edge which makes me think it is an early
veil rather than a napkin. Some of the signatures were easy to make out, but some were impossible to decipher.
My PhD research was nurses and nursing in the Boer War, and as soon as I started looking at the signatures I recognised some of the names of the nurses (the Boer War nurses are in a database on the British Army Nursing website http://britisharmynurses. com). Some also had written ANSR after their names. ANSR is the Army Nursing Service (Reserve) that existed before the formation of the QAIMNS in 1902. I transcribed all of the signatures that I could make out, and found these nurses:
Hamilton, Ontario. Annie volunteered for service as a nursing sister with the Canadian Army Medical Services in 19154. Her military records list her service in hospitals in England and France, but no service on hospital ships. She was awarded the Associate Royal Red Cross in 1918, which she received from the King at Buckingham Palace5.
Records of passenger journeys across the Atlantic show her making several trips on the Canada, a ship of the White Star - Dominion Line. The Canada was also used as a troop transport from Canada to England during WW1. Did she embroider
Name
Mabel Burrows
Elsie Gertrude Eastmead Ida Roberts ANSR
Violet Chawner
Margaret Steenson Beatrice Bracy
Charlotte Condell Myfanwy Pughe
Jane Gray
A. Hayhurst ANSR
Service in the Boer War
Not on the database
Bloemfontein
Standerton and on Hospital Ship Orcana On the database but location not known Standerton
Potchefstom
Newcastle (SA)
Wynberg
Cape Town and Johannesburg
Imperial Yeomanry Hospital, Pretoria
The other signatures all appear to be military men. Many of them included their regiments along with the signatures, and these names can also be traced back to the Boer War.
Annie Jane Hayhurst, who was thought to have done the embroidery, is on the medal roll for the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital1, and appears in Countess Howe’s account of the hospitals2. By 1911 she appears on the census in Canada3, living with her parents who had emigrated to
signatures collected during her service in the Boer War on one of these journeys?
We may never know where or when this cloth was embroidered, but it is clear that the catalogue description of ‘a napkin embroidered on a hospital ship evacuating casualties from the Dardanelles’, does not give us the true story of this object.
Lt Col (Retd) Dr Keiron Spires QVRM TD
Chair QARANC Association Heritage & Chattels Committee
References
1The National Archives: WO 100/130 QSA Medal Roll p228 created at The Imperial Yeomanry Hospital, Pretoria;
dated July 13, 1901
2Howe, Georgiana (Countess) (1902) The Imperial
Yeomanry Hospitals in South Africa 1900-1902. London: Arthur L. Humphreys.
3The 1911 Census of Canada, Ontario, Hamilton West, p2, Family 21.
4Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4190 - 29
5British Journal of Nursing (1918) The Royal Red Cross BJN, July 27 1918, p.60
The veil showing the embroidered names and the pennant of the White Star Line. Published with
kind permission of the Director, Museum of Military Medicine.