Page 38 - QARANC Vol 17 No 2 2019
P. 38
36 The Gazette QARANC Association
Corps
Heritage
Matters
The Association Heritage and Chattels sub-committee continues to meet regularly in Robertson House at RMA Sandhurst, and we very much enjoy getting together and swapping little nuggets of historical interest between us, as well as getting down to the serious business of guardianship of our history and heritage.
At our meeting in Spring 2019, we decided, as part of our aim to get British Military Nursing ‘out there’ that we would submit three papers for consideration to be presented at Florence 2020. Florence 2020 is an international nursing history conference organised by the European Association for the History of Nursing. It commemorates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, and is to be held in Florence itself. We were all highly gratified when our Chair informed us that all three papers had been accepted for presentation, especially since some members of the committee are able to attend to present them. Our thanks are due to Keiron for preparing all the abstracts. Keiron has been very busy learning Italian in preparation for the conference, although I am pleased to say that the conference language is English! I somehow doubt that my O level Latin will be of much help to me understanding or speaking Italian. We will be publishing shortened versions of all three papers in the Autumn 2020 edition of the Gazette. Each paper represents a different aspect of the history of British Military Nursing. Part of our trip includes a visit to Florence Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery. We are not aware of any nurses’ graves at the cemetery, but plan to hold a short dedication and lay a wreath in memory of all those who died fighting in Italy in the First and Second World Wars.
We have been marvelling at the amazing condition of the chattels returned to Robertson House from the conservators. The busts of Queen Alexandra and Sidney Herbert look like new, which suggests that they hadn’t been cleaned for some considerable time. We are taking advice from the conservators about how to keep our
Death plaque purchased by the Heritage Fund – Sister Sophie Hilling, QAIMNS(R). She died on 10 October 1918 of influenza pneumonia at 72 General Hospital in France. You can read more about her life and career at http://britisharmynurses.com/hilling-sophie/
collection looking pristine, and are putting into place some actions to prevent damage and misuse. We are still awaiting the return of the bust of Florence Nightingale and hope she will be back with us before 2020, so that we can celebrate 200 years since her birth in Florence in 1820.
We welcome some new members to the sub-committee this Autumn. Linda and Alan Taberner are very active in the living history scene, and you can read about some of their activities in the article by Alan in this edition. Rebecca Sloane-Mather also joins us. She was successful in her application to Cardiff University to undertake PhD studies relevant to the history of Army Nursing, and was awarded funding from the Association to support her fees and other expenses. Rebecca will be writing for the Gazette about her progress, and we wish her good luck with her endeavours.
The Association Heritage Fund has been put to good use this year, and we have been able to purchase some interesting items which help us to tell the history of British Army Nursing. Amongst these is a so-called ‘death penny’ from the First World War. The family of every serviceman and servicewoman who died in the First World War was sent a bronze plaque in memory of their loved one. There were over 1,000,000 plaques issued, together with a memorial scroll and a
letter from the King, commemorating each serviceman who died, but of course many less commemorating the servicewomen who died. This means women’s plaques have a scarcity value, and they rarely come up for sale and when they do, they are expensive.
I have written before that I believe the right and proper place for such items is with the family of the deceased, but many families don’t realise the significance of such items, or the item may get lost or acquired by someone else in a house clearance. It would take considerable effort to trace descendants, so the next best course of action I believe is that a medal, plaque or other significant personal item should find a new home with the Association. We take advice from the Director of the Museum of Military Medicine, Jason Semmens, when we buy items, as the museum is destined to be the permanent home of our heritage collection in the fullness of time.
Facebook: British Army Nurses Twitter: @army_nurses
Website: britisharmynurses.com
Alison Spires
Member Heritage and Chattels sub- committee