AT PERTH CENTRAL STATION
On Saturday afternoon 17 March 1900, a contingent of 11 nurses boarded the 3.25 pm train for Albany at Perth central station and settled into their comfortable sleeper carriage. The platform was so crowded with well-wishers that many people had been unable to say farewell to the nurses. The whistle blew, and as the train chugged out of the station, the crowd gave three hearty cheers.
Four days later, Nurses Armstrong, Bole, Brooks, Emmins, Milne, Naylor, Plover, Rogers, Speers and Tchan, together with their lady superintendent, embarked on the SS Salamis. They were bound for Cape Town, the capital of Cape Colony, one of two self-governing British colonies in South Africa, the other being Natal. The 11 women had been chosen as Western Australia’s nursing contribution to the British campaign against the two Boer republics in South Africa, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, in the South African War, better known today as the Second Boer War or the Anglo-Boer War.
THE WINDS OF WAR
Tensions between the Boer republics and British imperial and colonial authorities had been simmering long before the outbreak of the South African War on 11 October 1899. The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 had drawn thousands of ‘Uitlanders’ (‘Outlanders’) from across the British Empire into the Transvaal, and by the early 1890s they outnumbered the Boer population. The Uitlanders, heavily taxed yet excluded from political representation, began to agitate for reform. In December 1895 Cecil Rhodes, the prime minister of Cape Colony, directed the British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson to mount an armed incursion into the Transvaal from the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Botswana). Intended to trigger an uprising by the Uitlanders, the Jameson Raid was botched and no such uprising occurred. Instead, President Kruger of the Transvaal began to import large quantities of European ordnance and established a defensive alliance with the Orange Free State. Anglo-Transvaal relations progressively deteriorated and by mid-1899 it was clear that war was imminent.
By then the winds of war had blown as far as Australia, where they reached Ballarat-born nurse Rose Shappere. In May 1899 she embarked from Adelaide on the SS Warrnambool for Durban, the capital of Natal, intending to offer her services at the earliest opportunity. She became the first of many Australian nurses to go to South Africa.
In September the Boer republics and Cape Colony and Natal began to mobilise in earnest. At the same time, the Australian colonies began recruitment drives in support of the British cause. When Victoria’s drive opened on 20 September, two nurses were among the handful of volunteers to enrol that day, and over the next few months, hundreds of women across Australia offered to nurse the troops.
SHOULD NURSES SERVE?
Colonial military authorities, apart from those of Victoria, initially ruled out nurses’ involvement in the war. When Major-General George French, commandant of the New South Wales Military Forces, was asked by the Sydney Morning Herald (21 October 1899) whether any nursing corps would he sent, he replied “I do not think there is the slightest possibility of such a step being taken. The British army has an abundance of nurses enlisted, and you must know that but a few nurses may attend to a hospital full of men. Now as a matter of fact we have 26 nurses belonging to our own establishment. They have been gazetted long ago as a corps, and last year were supplied with uniforms. They comprise many of the most skilful nurses in the Sydney hospitals. If nurses were required by the British Government we would send these, and there would be no chance at all of us sending any of the many earnest ladies who have signified their desire to go, and some of whom, by the bye, never nursed a patient. Nurses do not go to the front with the fighting line. They stay at the base or general hospital, and the farthest out they go is the field hospital. There are no calls for Florence Nightingales nowadays. With small units like ours we do not want what I may term the adjuncts of war. We take no chaplains; we take no nurses.”
In the event, those “adjuncts of war” proved critical to British success.
WAR BREAKS OUT
On 9 October the Transvaal and Orange Free State jointly issued an ultimatum to Britain, demanding that all British troops massed on their borders be withdrawn. Britain did not respond, and on 11 October the Boers considered themselves at war. General Piet Joubert, commanding the Transvaal forces, crossed into Natal on 12 October and began to push south towards Ladysmith. Meanwhile, General Piet Cronje, commander of Boer forces in the west, besieged Mafeking in northern Cape Colony on 13 October and Kimberley the following day.
By then the first contingent of Australian troops, a squadron of New South Wales Lancers who had been training at Aldershot in England, was on its way to South Africa. Departing London on the Nineveh on 10 October, the men arrived at Cape Town on 2 November and were immediately marched to the railway station and sent to the front in northern Cape Colony. That same day, Joubert besieged Ladysmith.
In Australia, meanwhile, contingents of troops from Victoria and South Australia had embarked for Cape Town on the Medic. They were joined at Albany on 5 November 1899 by the first contingent of Western Australian troops. At around the same time, Queensland troops departed on the Cornwall and New South Wales troops on the Aberdeen.
THE TRANSVAAL NURSES’ FUND
The question of whether nurses would follow the troops to South Africa continued to be discussed in the letters columns of newspapers across Australia, but it was in Western Australia that a movement first arose towards raising and equipping a nursing contingent.
The movement began when a letter sent by Dr. Edward J. A. Haynes, a well-known Perth doctor, was published in the Perth Morning Herald on 18 December. “As it appears almost certain that we shall send more troops to the Transvaal,” Dr. Haynes wrote,
I think that it is only fair and reasonable that some of our ladies should be allowed to go to the war as nurses. I can state with some authority that we have here medical and surgical nurses equal to any in England. I am aware that many nurses are anxious to go, and it is only fair to our soldiers that they should, if occasion require it, be nursed by colonial nurses…. I am certain that there are many colonists who would gladly assist in sending ‘Tommy Atkins’ some colonial nurses.
Dr. Haynes’s letter appeared just three days after General Sir Redvers Buller, the commander-in-chief of British forces in South Africa, was defeated by a Boer force under Louis Botha at Colenso in Natal. It was the third British defeat in five days, a period that became known as ‘Black Week,’ and precipitated Buller’s replacement as commander-in-chief by Field Marshal Lord Roberts.
The letter prompted a group of prominent Perth citizens, which included Alexander Forrest, the mayor of Perth; Sister Elizabeth G. G. Wemyss, matron of the Perth Public Hospital; Sister Mary Nicolay, a former matron of the Perth Public Hospital; Surgeon Major Arthur White; and Dr. Haynes himself, to meet on 20 December in the mayor’s parlour at the Town Hall. The group established the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund and appointed a committee to administer it. The following day, Perth’s town clerk sent a letter (as printed in the West Australian on 22 December 1899) to the governor of Western Australian, Sir Gerard Smith:
I have the honor, by direction of his Worship the Mayor of Perth, to inform you that at a meeting of citizens, held last evening, it was resolved that, on behalf of Western Australia, an offer be made to the imperial authorities to send 20 or more nurses to the Transvaal, free of cost to the British Government. It was resolved that His Excellency the Governor be informed of the resolution, and that he be requested to convey the offer to the Home Government. His Worship the Mayor respectfully trusts that His Excellency the Governor will be pleased to have a cable message forwarded to the proper authorities.
The governor duly sent a telegram (The Daily News, 22 December 1899) to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, in London, which read as follows:
Am requested by the Mayor of Perth to inform you that at a public meeting last night it was resolved to offer, on behalf of the people of Western Australia, to send to South Africa 20 or more nurses, free of cost to the British Government.
A reply (The Daily News, 22 December 1899) was shortly received:
Referring to your telegram of 21st December, Her Majesty’s Government very grateful for offer from people of Western Australia, which they gladly accept, to attend to irregular forces and colonial corps. British regular forces can be legally only attended by nurses belonging to Army Nursing Reserve.
Following the positive response from the British authorities, the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund committee called for public subscriptions to fund the 20 nurses and then set about finding suitable candidates. On Christmas Day, the following notice appeared in the ‘Public Notices’ section of the West Australian:
TRANSVAAL TRAINED NURSES’ FUND.
APPLICATIONS will be received by the undersigned for 20 TRAINED NURSES for the Transvaal. State experience. Apply
F. H. MENDOZA,
Hon. Secretary,
Westralia Chambers, 408 Hay-street.
However, on 26 December Sir Gerard Smith received further communication from London stating that only 10 nurses should be sent.
Over the next week, between 30 and 40 applications were received from hopeful nurses, and on 2 January 1900 the committee selected 17 as having the necessary qualifications. Following a meeting of the committee held on 9 January, Major White telegraphed to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kelly, the head of the New South Wales Army Medical Corps, asking whether he could arrange for the Western Australian nurses to travel to South Africa by the same steamer as a contingent of 14 nurses of the New South Wales Army Nursing Service Reserve, led by Nellie Gould. Two days later he received a reply to the effect that the New South Wales nurses were booked on the Moravian, which was carrying the 2nd New South Wales Contingent to South Africa, and it was doubtful whether there would be any room for the Western Australian nurses. Other arrangements would have to be made. The Moravian departed Sydney on 17 January.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, Lord Roberts had arrived at Cape Town to take command, accompanied by Herbert Kitchener, his chief of staff. On 6 February he began to advance from Cape Town northeastwards along the railway corridor towards Orange Free State, and by 15 February Kimberley had been relieved. Roberts crossed into Orange Free State and on 13 March took Bloemfontein, its capital.
THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN CONTINGENT
On 15 January 1900 the number of nurses was whittled down from 17 to 10, but after at least one nurse pulled out it was not until 24 January that the final 10 were named, with Sister Mary Nicolay appointed as their superintendent. As (tentatively) identified below, no more than two (and perhaps none) of the 10 nurses were born in Western Australia. Sister Nicolay herself was from England.
Susannah Armstrong was born in County Wicklow, Ireland around 1860 and migrated to Australia in 1888, settling in Queensland. She gained her nursing certificate at Brisbane Hospital and at one time worked in Dr. Hare’s Typhoid Unit with Miriam Plover, another of the 10 chosen nurses. In October 1897 Nurses Armstrong and Plover sailed to Western Australia on the Aramac and worked in private nursing in Perth, perhaps at the private hospital on Palmerston Street where Miriam Plover became head nurse. When the South African war broke out, the two nurses reportedly offered their services to the Queensland premier, Robert Philp, who declined the offer.
Elizabeth Amelia Bole, also known as Eliza, was born at Kanyaka North in South Australia on 7 December 1871. She moved to Western Australia and in April 1897 was appointed to the Perth Public Hospital. She gained her certificate on 11 March 1900, just six days before the 11 nurses departed for Albany.
The best candidate for the identity of “Nurse B. Brooks” (as named in newspaper reports in January 1900) is Beatrice Elizabeth Brooks, also known as Bertha Elizabeth Brooks. She was born in Victoria on 11 February 1878 to Clara Guy and William Brooks – though, mysteriously, no record of her birth exists in the Victorian registry. Furthermore, “Nurse B. Brooks” reportedly gained her certificate from Sydney Hospital, whereas Beatrice Brooks trained in Melbourne after the war. Despite these discrepancies, other evidence strongly points to Beatrice, and this narrative will proceed under that assumption.
Annabella Emmins was born in 1869 in South Yarra, Melbourne. She trained as a nurse at Melbourne Hospital and in 1896 moved to Western Australia to join the Reverend George W. Rowe’s ‘Sisters of the People,’ as a member of which group she worked in the goldfields of Coolgardie treating miners who had contracted typhoid. In February 1898 she was appointed to the Fremantle Public Hospital.
Elizabeth Milne, known as Bessie, was born in 1874 in South Australia. She trained at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital before moving to Western Australia, where she was appointed to the Perth Public Hospital in 1897.
Very little is known about L. A. Naylor. She appears to have been married and in September 1899 was appointed to the position of nurse at Menzies Hospital in the North Coolgardie Goldfields.
Miriam Pauline Plover was born sometime between 1867 and 1874, possibly in Victoria or in Queensland. She trained at Brisbane Hospital from 1893 to 1897 and then travelled to Perth with Susannah Armstrong, as noted above.
Louisa Elizabeth Rogers (who may have been known as Lily or Lillie) was born around 1861 in Nohoval, County Cork, Ireland. She gained her nursing certificate at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow (she was there in April 1891 when the Scotland Census was taken) before migrating to Western Australia (possibly aboard the Orotava in 1892 as ‘Lillie Rogers, 30, Nurse’). She was appointed to the Perth Public Hospital in 1899. Her brother, H. Ingram Rogers, lived for a time at Coogee in Perth.
Louisa Maria Speers was born at Yarra Junction, Victoria in 1866. She gained her nursing certificate at Sydney Hospital and subsequently worked with Dr. Syme in Lilydale, on the eastern fringes of Melbourne. In April 1898 she sailed on the Innamincka from Melbourne to Perth and began working at the Mount Eliza Invalid Depot on Mounts Bay Road with her sister Eliza (who was known as Lila and had been a missionary nurse in New Guinea, and is sometimes confused with Louisa).
Isabella Tchan was born Isabella Bennett in West Ham, London in 1861. She married John Henry Green in 1878, and together they migrated to Fremantle, Western Australia in 1882. John Green disappeared and in 1892 Isabella married Alfred Tchan, a builder and cabinet maker. By 1895 they were living on Newcastle Street in Perth.
For three years Nurse Tchan worked with Dr. Haynes. In 1898 she established a private hospital known as Bethal Lodge on Palmerston Street, Perth, which she relinquished to go to South Africa. By this time it appears that she was no longer living with Alfred Tchan, and he does not return to her story.
Mary Ann Nicolay was born in Cadogan Square, London on 2 August 1850, the daughter of Mary Ann Raven and the Rev. Charles Grenfell Nicolay. She spent part of her childhood in India and South America before returning to England to complete her schooling. After training as a teacher, Mary Nicolay opted for nursing and in 1870 entered the Nightingale School, also known as the Nightingale Home, which had been built by Florence Nightingale in the grounds of St. Thomas’s Hospital, adjacent to Westminster Bridge in central London. She was the youngest of the last 12 nurses to be trained personally by Miss Nightingale prior to her retirement. On completing her training in 1873, Sister Nicolay transferred from the home to St. Thomas’s Hospital, where she did ward nursing until 1876.
From 1876 to 1878 Sister Nicolay worked as a nurse in London’s slums before travelling to Wales to assume charge of a cottage hospital at Llanelly. After several years she left to become matron of a large hospital in Newcastle, England. She later worked at Newport in Wales before becoming matron at the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester.
In 1888 Sister Nicolay, her mother and her siblings migrated to Perth to join the Rev. Nicolay, who had settled in Western Australia at an earlier date. Sister Nicolay continued her nursing, working for the Anglican Church at its institutions on Adelaide Terrace and in the Swan District. Around 1889 she became matron of the Perth Public Hospital (then named the Colonial Hospital). She remained in charge until 1891 and then went into private nursing. In 1895 Sister Nicolay opened and conducted her own private hospital on Brisbane Street, selling it when chosen as superintendent of the Western Australian contingent.
BOUND FOR CAPE TOWN
By 13 February 1900, berths for the 11 nurses had been secured aboard the SS Salamis for departure on 19 March – the earliest passage available. All other steamers heading for Cape Town had been booked months in advance. Unfortunately, the only berths left on the Salamis were in the steerage, a circumstance that would rankle with some of the nurses and bring a welter of criticism upon the committee.
Compounding the frustration of many, just over a week later a South Australian contingent of nurses – raised through the efforts of a committee that was established after its Western Australian equivalent, and funded by public subscription – departed Melbourne for South Africa aboard the Australasian.
On the evening of Saturday 10 March – the day that a contingent of 10 Victorian nurses departed for South Africa aboard the Euryalus with the Third (Bushmen’s) Contingent (among whose number was Charles Walter Speers, Louisa Speers’s brother) – the Western Australian nurses were invited to a function at Government House in Perth. They were wearing their new uniforms, which were described by ‘Malus’ in The Inquirer and Commercial News on 16 March:
[Their] cloaks [were] bell shape, right down to the ground, and made of a beautiful shade of grey rep. The nurse in charge (Sister Nicolay) had a triple cape of dark blue on her cloak, her bonnet being of dark blue, with a long streamer and white strings. The others (Nurses Speers, Emmens [sic], Bole, Plover, Naylor, Armstrong, Tchan, Brooks, and Rogers) had similar capes, but of pale blue, their bonnets being of grey velvet, piped with pale blue, grey streamers and white strings.
The final meeting of the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund committee before the nurses’ departure was held on 16 March. All the nurses except for Louisa Rogers attended, and it was perhaps on this occasion that Mayor Forrest handed Sister Nicolay a letter of introduction to give to Sir Alfred Milner, the governor of Cape Colony. The letter read as follows:
The present will serve to introduce to you the corps of nurses who have offered their services for work in the Transvaal, and if you can render them any assistance after their arrival at Cape Town I shall esteem it as a personal favor. As you are aware, those nurses have been sent by the people of Western Australia, and therefore any courtesy you may be able to render them will be heartily appreciated by us all…. I attach hereto a memorandum received from His Excellency the Governor of Western Australia giving a copy of the cable message from the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The following day the nurses entrained for Albany. Among the gifts they were taking with them were deck chairs from Lady Forrest (the wife of the premier of Western Australia, Sir John Forrest, the brother of Alexander Forrest); cases of apples from Mrs. Messer; surgical instruments from Messrs. F. H. Faulding & Co.; and pocket money of £5 each from the committee. A further £25 had been placed in a bank at Cape Town for each nurse.
When their train arrived at Albany on 18 March, the nurses were met on the platform by Mr. J. A. Wright, who took them to the Freemasons Hotel – according to instructions from Sir John Forrest. Meanwhile, Mr. E. Reynolds, of the Royal George Hotel, under instructions from Mr. J. A. Peart, the secretary of the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund committee (who had replaced Mr. F. H. Mendoza) sent carters down to carry their baggage, as he had reserved rooms for them at his hotel.
The mix-up, though minor, was the first of several that occurred during the nurses’ journey to South Africa and upon their arrival – generally through miscommunication. The newspapers, the public, and some of the nurses themselves laid the blame at the feet of the committee, but the nurses knew what they were getting into, and there were doubtless circumstances that were beyond the committee’s control.
THE SALAMIS
The Aberdeen White Star steamer Salamis set out from Sydney on 7 March 1900. Every available berth in the saloon had been taken up, and the steerage accommodation, which was also full, had been considerably enlarged to meet the demand for berths.
Among the passengers boarding the Salamis in Sydney was a Queensland nurse by the name of Beatrice Huston (sometimes known as Bea), who was going to South Africa to serve in the war. Born in 1879 in St. Lawrence, Queensland, Nurse Huston was travelling independently, though with some financial help from the people of Clermont, where she had been living and working. As Nurses Armstrong and Plover had discovered, Queensland had not been interested in raising an official nursing contingent, nor had one been organised by a committee through public subscription. Nevertheless, Beatrice Huston had been given a letter of introduction from Premier Philp.
From Sydney the Salamis called at Hobart, where 12,000 cases of fruit were loaded on, before arriving on 14 March at Port Melbourne, where a shipment of rabbits was brought on board. Among those embarking in Melbourne were eight more nurses bound for South Africa – an independent nurse from Victoria and a contingent of seven New Zealand nurses.
Nurse Janey Lempriere, born around 1872, was from the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava and had trained at the Children’s Hospital in Carlton. She was paying for her own passage and was carrying a letter of introduction from Donald Melville, the Victorian Minister of Defence.
The seven New Zealanders – Nurses Isabella Campbell, Dora Louisa Harris, Elizabeth Rennie Hay, Ellen Maria Monson, Agnes Dora Peiper and Sarah Jane Ross, and Sister Janet Wyse Mackie Williamson, their superintendent – had been outfitted and equipped by the Otago and Southland Nurses’ Committee and funded through public subscription. They had sailed to Melbourne from Dunedin around 10 March.
When the Salamis arrived at Albany on the morning of 21 March, the Western Australian nurses (or at least some of them) were on the wharf to welcome the New Zealand nurses. They presented Sister Williamson with a basket of fruit tied with red, white, and blue ribbons and invited the New Zealanders to lunch at the Freemasons’ Hotel (presumably extending the invitation to Nurses Huston and Lempriere).
Later, one of the New Zealand nurses wrote that the Western Australian nurses “wear very delicate grey uniforms, faced with pale-blue badges, and have a black swan in the centre of the Red Cross” (Evening Star, 24 May 1900).
After an evening meal at the Freemasons’ Hotel, the 20 nurses left the wharf by the 8.00 pm tender for the Salamis. As the tender pulled away, three cheers were given for the Western Australians, followed by three cheers for the New Zealanders. At around 9.00 pm the Salamis departed Albany.
“A DREADFUL VOYAGE”
By popular consensus, the voyage was awful. In a postcard sent from Cape Town to a Mrs. Forster dated 13 April 1900, Nurse Naylor wrote that it was “a fearful trip” (Albany Advertiser, 19 May 1900). One of the New Zealand nurses reported that it had been “attended most of the way by the miseries of sea-sickness and other discomforts” (Evening Star, 30 May 1900). In a letter to Mrs. G. F. Harvey, Mary Nicolay wrote that it was “a dreadful voyage…. There are 200 passengers in steerage – 90 more than are allowed” (The West Australian, 22 May 1900). The passengers were accommodated in ten-berth cabins, reportedly with no sheets or pillow slips.
“We have no water after 11.30 a.m. until the next day,” Sister Nicolay continued, “and never can wash all day. One gets so grimy that we actually steal water out of the filter to rinse our hands in. I have had no bath, and only a pint of water to wash in each morning.” In a letter to Mrs. J. M. Cross written from Rondebosch soon after the nurses’ arrival, Beatrice Huston noted that there were only three basins for 80 women and children to wash in.
Even though the nurses had known that they were to travel in the steerage, they had been given to understand that they would at least be permitted to dine in the saloon. However, when they inspected the ship before sailing, they were told by the captain that it would cost an extra £70 more in total to do so. According to a report in the Albany Advertiser on 24 March 1900, the nurses then sent a telegram to Mr. J. A. Peart asking whether the committee could cover the cost. He reportedly replied that it could not. They had no choice but to endure the food provided to steerage passengers.
The food in the steerage was predicably awful. In her letter, Beatrice Huston told Mrs. Cross that it was often sour, the bread was mouldy, and the meat was very often bad. “We are all looking thin and haggard for want of food,” wrote Sister Nicolay in her letter, “and the privations in every way have told upon us. We chiefly live on biscuits.”
The Western Australian nurses had taken the biscuits on board themselves. As reported in the Albany Advertiser, after £7 worth of luxuries for the voyage that had been put on the train in Perth went missing,
several ladies made a collection in order to provide [the nurses] with comforts during the voyage…. The following articles were then purchased and given to the matron: – pillow slips 15s, 20lbs biscuits, 20 pots Bovril, 20 meat extract, 2doz. unsweetened milk, 6lbs prunes, 1doz. potted meat.
It is hardly surprising that many of the nurses became ill during the voyage. In her postcard, Nurse Naylor wrote that they were “nearly all sea sick all the way.” Nurse Huston’s cheeks became hollow and her eyes sunken, and she lost 10 kilograms in weight. The New Zealanders fell ill too, with Nurse Monson the worst among them.
DURBAN
After a fortnight the Salamis had crossed the Indian Ocean and at around 5.00 pm on 6 April land was sighted. An hour later the lights of Durban appeared, and at 8.00 pm the Salamis anchored in the roadstead outside the harbour. Numerous vessels lay at anchor, among them a number of hospital ships. The nurses spent the night on board, and at around 8.00 am next morning a tender came out to take them to shore. The sea was too rough to permit the lowering of the gangway, so much to their amusement they were slung across to the tender in a basket, five or six at a time.
As the Salamis was anchored some four kilometres out, it took the tender about half an hour to reach the wharf – where, in all directions, lay soldiers on stretchers, some wounded, some with fever, but all worn and thin. They had come from Ladysmith, which had been relieved on 28 February by General Buller on his fourth attempt. Some of the sick and wounded men were brought on board the Salamis to be transported to Cape Town for a month’s rest.
The 20 nurses found a hotel and had a decent wash and a square meal. They then took rickshaw rides around Durban, an attractive city with palm trees and fine buildings and churches. They stopped at a fruit market, whose prices, Mary Nicolay told Mrs. Harvey, “would astonish the Perth people for cheapness.” They returned to the Salamis in the mid-afternoon and at around 5.30 pm the ship departed. The hospital ship Orcana had left an hour before the Salamis, but during the voyage the Salamis left it far behind.
On Sunday night 8 April Sister Nicolay conducted a service, as had been the habit throughout the voyage. The nurses sang ‘For Those in Peril of the Sword.’
CAPE TOWN
After a rough voyage, the Salamis arrived safely at Cape Town on Tuesday 10 April 1900. As there was no berth available at the wharf, the ship anchored in Table Bay at around midday. However, the port’s tenders were all engaged with other vessels, and it was not until 4.00 pm that one came alongside the Salamis. By the time the nurses arrived at the wharf, it was after 6.00 pm and nearly dark.
On the wharf there was no one to meet the 20 Australian and New Zealand nurses. Although their subsequent letters home differ in detail, it would appear that some of the nurses took a Hansom cab to look for lodgings; others went to the nearby Customs House with all the luggage; and Sister Nicolay, Nurse Lempriere and one of the New Zealand nurses – presumably Sister Williamson, the superintendent – took a cab to the Main Barracks at the ‘Castle,’ a 17th-century fort not far from the wharf, to report to the military authorities with their letters of recommendation.
At the Castle the three nurses found quite a crowd of soldiers and nurses. Some of the nurses belonged to the Army Nursing Service, who were sometimes known as the ‘Netley Sisters,’ after their training hospital at Netley, near Southampton in England. Others belonged to the Army Nursing Service Reserve, known as Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve (PCANSR), since it was run by a committee chaired by Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (the fifth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, born Princess Helena). The regulars wore dark blue dresses, with scarlet shoulder capes (known as tippets) and blue bonnets without veils. The reserves wore a similar uniform, and each had a silver badge on her tippet.
Sisters Nicolay and Williamson and Nurse Lempriere reported to the office of Surgeon-General Sir William Deane Wilson, Principal Medical Officer (PMO) for the Royal Army Medical Corps. Unfortunately, General Wilson had not been advised that the Western Australian nurses were coming. Nevertheless, he happily took them into imperial service at rates of pay equal to those of PCANSR nurses – £40 per annum plus extras for each nurse (whom we shall henceforth designate ‘nursing sister’ or simply ‘sister’) and £60 plus extras for Mary Nicolay (now designated ‘superintendent’). It is not known whether General Wilson was aware or not of the coming of the New Zealanders, but he took them on too – again at rates of pay equivalent to those of PCANSR nurses. Nurse Lempriere – Sister Lempriere – was similarly taken on.
General Wilson advised Mary Nicolay that nurses were needed at Ladysmith – which, since the lifting of the siege, had become a major base for British operations against the Boers further north – and subsequently arranged passage for the Western Australians aboard a troopship due to leave Cape Town on 14 April for Durban, from where they would entrain for Ladysmith. In the meantime, they would stay in Cape Town at the British Government’s expense.
Following their meeting with General Wilson, the three nurses returned to the wharf, where they found the others waiting at the Customs House. Sister Rogers later complained of having to wait in the bitter cold. No other accommodation had been found, so the nurses spent the night at the wharf – the seven New Zealanders and the two independent Australians at the Customs House, and the 11 Western Australians aboard the RMS Tantallon Castle, whose captain was kind enough to put them up for the night.
The next morning, Wednesday 11 April, Sister Lempriere and Superintendent Williamson returned to the PMO’s office with the other New Zealand nurses and Beatrice Huston to finalise their appointments. From 14 April they would be detailed for duty at hospitals around Cape Town – Superintendent Williamson and Sisters Peiper and Campbell at No. 1 General Hospital (GH), Wynberg; Sisters Harris, Lempriere and Ross at No. 2 GH, Wynberg (located next to No. 1 GH); and Sisters Monson, Huston and Hay at No. 3 GH, Rondebosch.
BACK TO DURBAN
Meanwhile, after their night aboard the Tantallon Castle, the 11 Western Australian nurses moved to a hotel. They were all together in two less than perfectly clean rooms, but they did their best to be contented. It is not known whether the New Zealanders and Sisters Lempriere and Huston moved with them, but presumably they did. They all spent the next three days exploring Cape Town and were impressed by its size and beauty.
On Saturday 14 April the nurses were separated. The New Zealanders and Sisters Lempriere and Huston reported to their respective hospitals, and the Western Australians embarked for Durban on the Pavonia with 1,400 troops and 50 officers.
After an enjoyable voyage, during which they travelled saloon class, the nurses arrived at Durban on Friday 20 April. They disembarked on Saturday (having apparently spent the night on board) and reported to the local military authorities. However, instead of all being detailed for duty at Ladysmith, they were split into three groups. Superintendent Nicolay and Sisters Bole and Naylor were assigned to No. 4 General Hospital at Mooi River; Sisters Emmins, Milne and Speers to No. 7 General Hospital at Estcourt; and Sisters Armstrong, Brooks, Plover, Rogers and Tchan to the ‘Tin Town’ hospital at Ladysmith. Mooi River, Estcourt and Ladysmith were all stops on the Natal Main Line, which ran between Durban and Charlestown on the Transvaal border, and on the afternoon of that same Saturday the nurses departed Durban together on a troop train.
Beyond Maritzburg (also known as Pietermaritzburg), the largest town en route, the train climbed into the mountains, and some hours later, night well and truly having set in, Superintendent Nicolay and Sisters Naylor and Bole alighted at Mooi River, which was situated at 1,400 metres above sea level. A short distance beyond Mooi River lay Estcourt, and here Sisters Emmins, Milne and Speers got down. By now it was 3.00 or 4.00 am on Sunday morning. Several hours later Sisters Armstrong, Brooks, Plover, Rogers and Tchan arrived at Ladysmith.
NEWS FROM ESTCOURT
On 25 April Louisa Speers wrote to her sister Eliza from Estcourt. Extracts of her letter were published in the Inquirer and Commercial News on 8 June 1900. Needless to say, the sentiments expressed in her letters, and in those of the other nurses, reflect the attitudes of the time.
April 25. – Arrived at our destination at 4 a.m. on Sunday [22 April]. We are divided – Emmings [sic], Milne, and myself to Estcourt; Naylor, Boll [sic], and Sister Nicolay to Mooi River; Tchan, Plover, Armstrong, Rogers, and Brooks to Ladysmith.
I have charge of two rows of tents, which when full means 56 men. There are medical cases here at present, 400 of them very bad typhoid. We all live in tents, which enables us to enjoy the cool nights. It is very hot during the day, and bitterly cold at night.
On the hills one can see for miles and miles around; not a shrub or a tree of any sort, except on the banks of the rivers. One shrub grows 10ft. high or so, and then spreads out like an umbrella. The grass on the veldt is beautiful, and in immense quantities.
Our hospital follows the army. We are camped on the spot where the East and West Surrey fired upon each other in the dark [on the night of 22–23 Nov 1899]. One regiment was told to attack and the other was not, and the one that did know that an attack was to be made, when shots were fired, thought that it was the enemy, and the others thought that they were – a most awful blunder on the part of the commanding officers. We went for a look round on Sunday afternoon, and saw the stone-wall trenches and the place where the British had the big naval gun that knocked the Boer gun out. The boys on guard told us that if the mistake had not been made they had the Boers all surrounded, and would have had Joubert and his force all prisoners.
Between Durban and Pietermaritzburg some parts of the country are like some parts of Australia – plenty of wattles and small light woods. The farmers seem to grow plenty of pineapples and bananas and corn of some sort. The dress of the K—— is most picturesque; sometimes one is visible with pants only, another with a piece of cowhide, still another with a piece of oilcloth on, and various other kinds too numerous to mention. They are very childish, and can be amused by the hour with a ‘Jew’s harp’ or mouth organ.
The Imperial Government sent us back to Durban on a troopship, with 1,400 troops and 50 officers. We travelled saloon, and had a splendid trip.
Another of the nurses at Estcourt, perhaps Bessie Milne, wrote a letter home just after mid-May. By then General Buller, having consolidated his forces at Ladysmith, had begun to advance northwards along the railway corridor towards the Transvaal frontier at Charlestown–Volksrust. Meanwhile, Lord Roberts, after an extended pause at Bloemfontein, had continued his advance through Orange Free State and had just taken Kroonstad. Around two weeks later he crossed the Vaal River into the Transvaal and on 29 May occupied Elandsfontein, a vital railway junction. He took Johannesburg on 31 May and on 5 June occupied Pretoria, the capital.
The letter was published in the West Australian on 3 July 1900:
We arrived in Capetown on the 10th of April, had three days rest there, then returned by a transport to Durban with fourteen hundred troops. We had a good time in this boat; had our meals with the officers, who were very nice fellows. Some of the troops disembarked at Port Elizabeth, some at East London, and the others at Durban, so we were able to see all three places. I liked Durban immensely, and enjoyed having rides in rickshaws, although it does seem a bit inhuman to be dragged round by a human being. We arrived at Durban on Saturday, the 19th [presumably she means Saturday 21 April] and left the same afternoon by transport train for our different destinations. Three for Mooi River, four for Ladysmith, three, myself included, for Estcourt, where we arrived at 3 a.m. the following morning.
We did not go on duty that day, so went round exploring. Saw the trenches where the enemy had the barbed wire fences, etc. Estcourt is a tiny little village, which boasts of one street, a few shops, hotels, and churches. The Roman Catholic Church and Convent have been commandeered by the British, also the public school, and turned into hospitals. Our hospital is all canvas, and we are camped where one of the first battles was fought, and close to where the armoured train was wrecked. [Boer troops wrecked the line and caused the derailment on 15 November 1899. Seventy prisoners were taken, including a young Winston Churchill.] It was here that the East and West Surreys fired on one another.
We now have accommodation for 900 patients, and have 700 in, and expect more. Seventy or more came down at once from the front in the hospital trains. We only have 16 ‘sisters’ for all these patients, and there are hundreds of bad typhoid cases, and such a number of our staff are sick. Last week my doctor went to bed, and to-day I hear there is no hopes of his recovery. One sister, a maid, and three orderlies also went off duty with typhoid. Nine of these English sisters who are with us came out together, two are dead, another dying, and then the one that went down last week is pretty bad. Such numbers of doctors and sisters have died. It is simply appalling the way patients are dying.
I have eight tents to look after, and seven men in some tents, eight in others. Then we have an orderly for each tent. These are quite untrained, some of them are St. John Ambulance men, but they never learn anything of nursing. The worry is dreadful, and work very very hard. We go on duty at 8 a.m., and are supposed to come off at dinner time, which is 8.30 p.m., but it is more often 9.30 when I get up to my dinner. This week I have been very fortunate. I have had four hours off duty. We take it in turns to have two hours off duty of an afternoon. Then the sister on duty has to look after 16 tents.
I have never been in private dress, nor had a pair of gloves on since I came here. Even if there was anywhere to go one feels too tired when off duty to go anywhere. We each have a bell tent to ourselves, a nice stretcher, straw mattress and pillows, chair, table, and washing-stand. We have rations, which consists of bread, meat, cheese, tea, coffee, brown sugar, onions, and potatoes alternately. We have to buy all extras such as milk, butter, porridge, etc. Then we have to have our laundry work done at our own expense, even bed linen, and as we are on Imperial pay I am afraid when I want to come back to Australia I shall have to come back as stewardess.
Last night Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, our Australian surgeon, visited our camp, so the natives gave a war dance round a camp fire, in honour of the event. It was very funny and weird to see these awful-looking creatures dancing. Towards the end they got very excited, and as there were Zulus and K—— taking part, it took the man in charge all his time to keep peace. We have a great number of K—— working at our camp. They are very industrious. They make the most wonderful jewellery and wear an awful quantity. I am collecting a lot of curios. They would sell their souls for money, but will not take coppers. They will refuse six pennies for an article, and take a threepenny piece. They sing or rather keep on at one monotonous tune the whole time they are working, and are the happiest race of people I have seen.
We had the Durban Light Infantry stationed here, and I met two or three Australian boys amongst them. It is funny how people keep on cropping up who know people I know, and one of the sisters here is engaged to a cousin of mine in England, and whom I have never seen. He is a young doctor, and was coming out here, only my uncle took ill. I should have liked to have seen him. The Durban Light Infantry went away this week [to Dundee on garrison duty, after Buller captured the town] and we have stationed here now all that are left of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who seem a fine lot of men. Our officers played them cricket to-day, and were beaten, but our men have very little time for practising.
People over here have been very good to us, and our boys we hear praised up everywhere, and although the work is hard I am not sorry I came, as there is such a lot for us to do. We could do with a hundred more nurses, and then the patients here would be looked after properly, and yet the papers say women nurses are not wanted. Fancy these orderlies, some of them not too gentle, looking after bad cases. One was court-martialled a short time back for drinking the patient’s brandy, and the night sisters often find them asleep. Still I hope to get back to Australia again. I must draw to a close, as it is getting late. I am afraid you will be weary of reading this.
On 4 July Louisa Speers, still at Estcourt with Bessie Milne and Annabella Emmins, wrote to Mr. J. A. Peart. Her letter was printed in the Western Mail 25 August 1900:
No. 7 General Hospital, Field Force, Estcourt, Natal. 4th July, 1900. – I fully intended to have written sooner, but we three – Sister Milne, Nurse Emmens [sic], and I – who are at No. 7, have up till now been exceptionally busy. At present we are on night duty, so we have an odd night’s time to sit down for an hour or so.
We had a most terrible time coming over, and through the disagreeableness of one or two of our nurses we were the talk of the whole ship. I just wish those people who said we were not wanted here could see how much they are in need of trained nurses, particularly those whose friends and relations are only privates in the army. Of course, the officers fare all right. It is not one Sister and two or three orderlies to 56 or 60 of them.
I am afraid we are stuck here; we were hoping, as we were a field hospital, that we would be fortunate enough to be sent on to Pretoria, but we hear this morning that No. 2 from Wynburg [correctly Wynberg, where Sisters Lempriere, Harris and Ross had been posted] has had that honour, so we are like the boy and the balloon, we are out of it.
We forfeited our day’s sleep and went roaming over the old battlefields of Colenso and Pieters Hill, etc. It is very interesting, but very sad, graves everywhere, beginning here in Estcourt and going on right the way as far as we went and further. We got a few shrapnel shells and pieces of lyddite, and various other things, and saw some wonderful Boer trenches. It is marvellous how they were even shifted at all, and I think General Buller and the Tommies who fought under him deserve the highest honour that can be done to them. It is a wonder there is an English soldier left alive. The fire they have had to face was most terrible, in the Boers being such indifferent shots they have muck to be thankful for. General Buller is spoken so highly of by all his men. It is so nice to hear them, and I think there is not one but what would go through it again with him if the necessity arose. But oh, they are so weary of the hardships and sickness. If you could only see what wrecks the cursed fever and dysentery make of them, you would sympathise with them in their desire to be away from Africa. All such fine young fellows, too, some not more than 18 years old, and scores of them married and with families. And then to see the wanton destruction of everything. Homes that people have been working to get together for years all laid waste. Bridges and railway lines and buildings all more or less destroyed. This makes even us who are away from the fighting line and see no wounded realise in a small degree what war means. It is not individual deaths only. It is wholesale misery everywhere.
We had a drink of water from the famous Tugela. It is a lovely river, but just now fordable in many places; while being very deep in others. Of course, at the Colenso fight it was running a banker, as it was in the midst of the rainy season.
We are having it bitterly cold at night, and the Drakensberg Mountain is this morning covered in snow. It is a beautiful sight to see.
We have just heard that Mrs. Naylor [Sister Naylor] is seriously ill at Ladysmith. We mean to find out, if possible, whether this is true, and if so to go and see her. It is rather hard luck to be ill in a strange land, and a land of battle, too. Such a number of the English nurses have died. They don’t seem to stand it as well as we colonials do, but it does not do to boast. When a Sister dies her things are sold off by auction, just as the soldiers’ are, except, perhaps, a few trinkets or so. I think we shall be the colour of K—— by the time we leave here.
As of early August 1900, Sisters Emmins, Milne and Speers were still at Estcourt.
NEWS FROM LADYSMITH
Susannah Armstrong, Beatrice Brooks, Miriam Plover, Louisa Rogers and Isabella Tchan arrived at Ladysmith on Sunday 22 April 1900 and were posted to ‘Tin Town’ hospital, which was located northwest of town and so named because it was composed of an extensive series of corrugated iron buildings. News of the nurses’ experiences first came to hand when Louisa Rogers wrote a letter in late April or early May 1900 to her brother, H. Ingram Rogers, of Coogee, Perth (who had been involved in a spat through the letters pages of the Perth newspapers with Dr. Haynes over the treatment of the nurses). A short extract from Louisa Rogers’s letter, though more than enough to show how difficult nursing must have been, was printed in the West Australian on 4 June 1900:
There are 1,400 patients here just now, and the authorities wish to make room for 2,000. Enteric fever and dysentery, as well as typhoid, are terribly bad. The authorities are very short of nurses, and have been even worse off. One nurse had to look after five wards! In this hospital alone the doctor told me they wanted more nurses. Eight more arrived this morning. General Buller is expected to-morrow, to inspect the place. As he is going round the wards, I suppose I shall see him. I wish I had brought comic papers, etc., for the soldiers; they have nothing to read. If you know of anyone who would send them, I would be delighted to give them round. Address, Sister Rogers, Iron Hospital, Ladysmith.
“Oh, it is heartbreaking to see the men dying like dogs…”
On 26 May another of the Western Australian nurses at Ladysmith wrote a letter to Mrs. F. H. Stokes of South Fremantle, a long extract from which appeared in the Western Mail on 7 July 1900 (as below). It was quite possibly written by Beatrice Brooks, as she is mentioned in a manner that implies mutual familiarity in a letter that a certain Private C. Woodman wrote to Mr. F. H. Stokes on 30 April (which was printed in the West Australian on 5 June 1900).
Tin Camp Hospital, Ladysmith, May 26. – Durban was the only place we called at after leaving Australia. It is such a pretty town, and didn’t we have a jolly day, riding in the rickshaws and running all over the place. I won’t mention the dinner we had, but I assure you we enjoyed it after being nearly three weeks in the steerage. Capetown is much larger, and the suburbs are simply beautiful. The avenues are simply exquisite, huge trees with the branches interlaced overhead. It is a much more fashionable place than Perth. We spent four days there. Saturday morning is the fashionable promenade, and some of the dresses were simply lovely.
At the end of four days we came back to Durban in the troopship Pavonia. There were 1,400 troops and 25 officers on board. I had such a jolly time, and was sorry when the trip was over. We came straight up here (Ladysmith) in a special troop train. How everyone cheered the troops as we passed through the different stations. At one or two stations where we stopped the people met the train with tea and cakes for the ‘Tommies,’ but the officers and we poor nurses did not get any. But when we got to a tea-room the doors were shut against ‘Tommy,’ and we had our turn. The country from Durban to Maritzburg is simply exquisite; it was worth coming from Australia to see it. The hills and hollows were like a dream of beauty.
I have not seen any of the Australian troops, and cannot hear of them. Over here the doctors seem so unable to cope with disease. The bad cases simply die in spite of all we can do for them. I would like to come across some of our boys, but I do not want to see them in the hospital. I do not know where any of them are, and we do not hear much war news.
I don’t like Ladysmith; it is the most unhealthy spot I was ever in. To-day there is a dust storm raging that would disgrace Coolgardie. My ward is quite misty and I have every door and window shut to keep out the dust. I have a ward to myself; each ward contains 24 patients. I have three orderlies to look after as well as the patients. They (the orderlies) worry my life out, and are being continually changed. No sooner are they used to the patients than they are sent to another ward, and a fresh lot come in. The patients amuse me. They think the orderlies can do nothing right. Often some poor fellow will say ‘Sister, will you make my bed, please; these fellows do not know how to do it.’ Sometimes when they are giving a simple injection only I will hear a shout of ‘Sister, Sister!’ and will fly down, thinking something is wrong. A much injured voice will say ‘Sister, did you order this chap to do this to me?’ I answer, ‘Yes, I did.’ ‘Then, will you stop and see that he does it right?’ is the next question. It is of no use explaining to them that the orderlies have been taught to do it; if I stand by they are satisfied. But of course they are not all alike, and some are like wooden images. Some I detest as a loafing lot of crawlers.
Oh, it is heartbreaking to see the men dying like dogs; there were 14 deaths last night. I thank heaven I have no brother here to die as they are dying. As soon as they die they are stripped, not even a shirt left on. The first I saw die I insisted on his shirt being left on. Afterwards there was an enquiry because there was a shirt short in the ward. Well, they are wrapped up in half a grey blanket, stitched up in it, and buried without a coffin. It is wonderful how quickly one gets used to it. I take scarcely any notice now; the doctors absolutely none.
Before going on duty this morning we drove into Ladysmith for early service, 7.30 a.m. The distance is about two miles, and we have a lumbering old bus that the British captured from the Boers. It is drawn by a team of six of eight donkeys, two coolies sit in front, one to drive and one to use the whip, and how they love to use it on those poor little donkeys. Everyone knocks the coolies about, and they retaliate on the donkeys. As to the church, it is such a charming little old building, with the porch knocked in by Boer shells. The service is very High Church.
My room here contains in the way of furniture, a bed with a straw pillow, a box for a washing stand, a tin basin, and a bucket of water – nothing else. I can’t see myself, that is the trouble. I and another sister share between us a small hand-glass. I can cover it with the palm of my hand, and I look at one side of my head, then I turn it round and admire the other side.
Sisters Armstrong, Brooks, Plover, Rogers and Tchan stayed at Tin Town for only a matter of weeks and were eventually posted south to No. 15 GH, which opened around 15 July at Howick, 30 kilometres north of Maritzburg.
Sometime after the departure of the five, Mary Nicolay arrived at Tin Town, having been transferred from No. 4 GH at Mooi River. On 19 July she wrote to Mrs. J. W. Hope of Fremantle. An excerpt of her letter was published in the West Australian on 17 September 1900.
“I have not come across any of our West Australian contingent of soldiers as yet, though I have heard how greatly they are admired for their pluck and hard work. Indeed, the West Australians are doing their country good and are giving it a good name. I hear very good accounts from the principal medical officer here about the five nurses, who have been stationed here. They speak well of their work. I am glad to tell this, as it will please the people who sent them out. I have been sent up here to superintend. I do not like the work of superintendent in the army. It is most trying, but still I hope I am doing well.
“When the assembly (building) was handed over by the military last week, they gave me a very nice letter, and the Red Cross Society gave myself and the six nursing sisters a cheque for £5 each. I am pressing to the front, and most likely by the time you get this I shall be either in Johannesburg or Pretoria…. We cannot move as yet, for the railway that was repaired and opened a month ago, has now been wrecked again by the Boers. Are they not persistent? We are expecting a battle again near here. We have the artillery around us, and a big gun on a hill just about three-quarters of a mile off here. I went up to-day to see it, and they say that any time we may expect to hear it go off. We have a detachment of the Gloucesters and Devons, and Royal Hussars outside. I do hope the Boers will surrender. This dreadful war seems to be costing so many lives.
“Seven hundred prisoners, chiefly the Irish Yeomanry and 62 of the Derbys, and 27 Hussars, I think it was, have been set free by De Wet [General Christiaan Rudolf de Wet, Boer general and guerrilla leader]. The prisoners would not sign the parole, and the Boers had not enough food for themselves, so would not feed the prisoners. This was the parole: ‘I, the undersigned a member (officer) of the war forces of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, in South Africa, captured as a prisoner of war by the troops of the Orange Free State, solemnly promise herewith and on my word of honour, not to give any information to any officer or member of the forces of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, or to any official of the said Government in respect either to military or other matters concerning the Orange Free State or the South African Republic [aka the Transvaal], and I further solemnly promise that, during the continuance of the present war, I will not again take up weapons against the troops of the Orange Free State or the South African Republic, and that I shall not in any wise again afford help during the continuance of the present war to the forces of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Further, I declare that I know the consequences that will befall me should I break this parole.’
“You would not believe the state in which the prisoners arrived here. No clothes, and their feet bleeding. They are all gone now, with the exception of ten, retained in hospital. They have all been equipped again, and sent to join their regiments at their own request. They could have all gone home if they had liked. I have had some fine talks with them, as they were resting here a week. We gave them a tea party before they went.”
NEWS FROM MOOI RIVER
Of the three nurses posted to No. 4 GH, Mooi River in April, only Elizabeth Bole was still there by the start of August. As we have already seen, L. A. Naylor and Mary Nicolay had both been posted to Ladysmith – Sister Naylor by 4 July and Superintendent Nicolay by 19 July. As we will now see, Sister Naylor was subsequently transferred to Volksrust, a strategically important town situated on the Transvaal side of the Natal–Transvaal frontier, a few kilometres north of Charlestown on the Natal side of the frontier. After outflanking the Boers in the Drakensberg mountains and crossing into the Transvaal, General Buller had captured the twin towns on 12 June. He had then advanced northwestwards along the railway corridor towards Pretoria and in early July encountered Roberts’s army near Balfour.
On 5 August Elizabeth Bole wrote to Dr. Haynes, making reference to the controversary surrounding the nurses’ passage to South Africa. An excerpt of her letter was printed in the Western Mail on 20 October.
“I am sure you would like to know now some of us are getting on, as you have taken so much trouble on our behalf and encountered so much senseless opposition. I believe certain statements have appeared in the West Australian Press implying that all the members of the Nurses’ Contingent were greatly dissatisfied at the way they had to travel over. This is true of some, but certainly not of the majority. I myself am quite satisfied that our committee did the best they could for us under the circumstances. You worked so hard, and gave so much of your time to this matter, that it worries me to think you may consider us ungrateful. I will always be thankful that I was privileged to come and take a small share in nursing ‘Tommy.’ He is a splendid fellow; such a good patient. Bears most things so cheerily and uncomplainingly.
“Nurses Rogers, Armstrong, Brooks, Tchan and Plover are at Howick, about twenty miles from Pietermaritzburg. They were first sent to Ladysmith, but owing to the insanitary condition of that town the authorities moved the big hospital to Howick. Nurses Emmins, Speers, and Milne are at Estcourt, 15 miles from here (I often see them), and I believe Miss Nicolay is at Ladysmith, and Nurse Naylor at Volksrust.
“It is very different nursing the army to nursing in a civil hospital. This one contains 1,200 beds, and is very comfortable and well-equipped. I am the only West Australian nurse here. There are three New Zealanders and one Victorian. All the others are Netley and Army Reserve sisters. We are 29 in all. At present we are not a scrap busy, as the last two months has seen a great decrease in the number of typhoid cases. We hear very little news from the front on account of the Press censorship, but the war does not seem to be drawing to a close. There are not many surgical patients here. There is a lovely operating theatre, and a room with all the Rontgen Ray apparatus [X-ray apparatus, after Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered x-rays in 1895]. The best of stimulants and nourishment are given, and we are able to get plenty of fresh milk here. Altogether, I think the patients who come to Mooi River are very fortunate. I know many of the other hospitals are not so well supplied. I often wonder what the bills must be when I see champagne and Brande’s Essence served out so liberally!
“I had two days’ leave about two months ago, and I went to see the battlefields near Ladysmith. When one sees the places Buller’s army had to take, it is easily understood why Ladysmith was so long in being relieved. The town itself is very commonplace; I don’t think it is as large as York, Western Australia! Most of the large buildings show the marks of the attentions paid to them by ‘Long Tom’ and ‘Silent Sue’ [heavy artillery pieces].
“Everybody here has treated me most kindly. The sister superintendent (Miss Cole) is most nice; she holds the Royal Red Cross for services to the army in Egypt. We all sleep in little bell tents, and we dine in a marquee. The K—— do our washing. We are really most comfortable. I believe the sisters in the Orange River colony are not so well housed as we are in Natal.
“Since the middle of May the nights have been intensely cold. Often in our tents in the morning there is thick ice on the water, and the canvas will be frozen. There are heavy fogs early in the night which saturate everything, and then in the early morning it begins to freeze. The Red Cross Society gave each nurse a large warm khaki coat. They are greatly appreciated, especially by those on night duty. We would all like to be nearer the front, but of course we had to go wherever they wanted us.
“I have often smiled when I have remembered how some of the good people of Perth said we were not wanted here. A hospital camp, with 500 or 600 sick men, require a good many people to look after them. Nearly two hundred sisters have come from England since we came here. I do not think any more will be required, as the worst is over now. I have not seen any of the New Zealand or Australian contingents. I would have liked to have gone to them. We have no idea when we will return. I don’t think before the end of the year.”
NEWS FROM HOWICK
Around September or October 1900 Beatrice Brooks wrote home from No. 15 GH at Howick, where she remained with Sisters Armstrong, Plover, Rogers and Tchan. Like Elizabeth Bole, Sister Brooks addresses the controversy over the manner in which the nurses were sent to South Africa. Part of her letter appeared in the West Australian on 17 November 1900.
“There has been much trouble and contention caused through the West Australian nurses. But quite recently has come to my knowledge the news that the West Australians are under the erroneous opinion that we have suffered great hardships since our arrival here. I assure you such is not the case. Nothing could exceed the kindness with which the Australian Sisters are treated by all.
“During the three weeks of our stay in Ladysmith, everything was very uncomfortable, both in our quarters, and in our wards: indeed, it seemed terribly hard when we wanted such necessary things in our wards and could not get them, but matters mended rapidly, and before long we had everything we could desire. I am very happy here at Howick, and everyone is very good to us. Our P.M.O., Major Westcott, is everything we could desire. Our superintendent could not be kinder, or more thoughtful of our comfort, and we sisters agree very well, although it is true we all have our own wards, and meet only at meal times.
“One thing I must mention. I cannot understand why our nurses, one and all, say they did not know that we had to travel steerage. I knew; you plainly told me so before I left Fremantle. Surely the rest knew as much, and that being so, I wish they had let the matter drop. I left Perth knowing that I had to travel in that manner, and was quite content, as long as I reached here.
“While at Ladysmith, I visited all the battlefields, from Colenso to Newcastle. We have received the Queen’s chocolate box [a tin box of chocolates commissioned in 1900 by Queen Victoria for British and colonial personnel in South Africa], of which I am very proud; also a khaki coat – ‘British warmers’ we call them. They are very ugly, but very warm, and we are so proud to have them, and I am so happy to think I am here….
“There is no distinction made among the sisters. English, African, and Australian nurses are all treated and paid alike. Our salary is £40 a year and extras, the latter amounting to more than the salary.”
THE NURSES BEGIN TO RETURN HOME
Susannah Armstrong and Isabella Tchan were the first of the Western Australian nurses to return to Australia. On 9 December they were struck off strength of No. 15 GH at Howick and, with three officers and 80 men of the Western Australian contingents, departed Cape Town on the afternoon of 13 December 1900 aboard the steamer Orient.
British military authorities believed that the war had more or less finished. In August, the forces of Lord Roberts and General Buller had combined at Belfast, 200 kilometres east of Pretoria. After advancing eastwards along the Delagoa Bay Railway corridor, they had forced the commander of the Transvaal Boer forces, Louis Botha, to flee to Portuguese East Africa before capturing Komatipoort, the last town on the Transvaal side of the frontier, on 24 September. As far as Roberts and Buller were concerned, the war was effectively over. Buller returned to England in October and Roberts followed in December, having handed over supreme command to Lord Kitchener on 29 November. Kitchener cannot have known that the Boers, though beaten conventionally, would continue their campaign of guerilla warfare until 31 May 1902.
The Orient reached Albany at daylight on Saturday 29 December 1900, but it was not until 6.00 pm that the troops and Sisters Armstrong and Tchan disembarked. As boats carried the returnees from the ship to the jetty, they were loudly cheered by several hundred spectators. They marched to the station and boarded a special train that carried them to Perth.
Shortly afterwards, Isabella Tchan was interviewed by a reporter from the Morning Herald (whose interview was reprinted in the Inquirer and Commercial News on 4 January 1901). She expected that the remaining nurses would return with the next batch of men, with the exception of one or two nurses who had decided either to remain in South Africa or go to England. She also reported that Sister Plover had been gravely ill with enteric (at Howick) and had been so close to death at one point that her family had been notified by cable. However, Miriam Plover had not only passed through the ordeal safely, but was convalescent when Sister Tchan left and seemed likely to recover completely.
Indeed, when Miriam Plover returned to Australia with Mary Nicolay on the Ranee she appeared quite well again. The two nurses had embarked from Cape Town on 1 February 1901 with 140 Australian and New Zealand soldiers – Sister Plover an invalid, Superintendent Nicolay on transport duty. The Ranee arrived at Albany on 21 February and at Port Melbourne on 2 March, and here the nurses disembarked. Six weeks later they set out once again for South Africa, with Mary Nicolay on transport duty again. On 15 April they arrived at Albany aboard the Antillian with a contingent of 386 men and 10 officers, reinforcements for the 1st Regiment of New South Wales Mounted Rifles; 12 members of the Victorian Imperial Bushmen’s Contingent; and 400 horses. The Antillian continued its journey the following day and arrived at Cape Town on 12 May.
By September 1901 Miriam Plover had returned once again from South Africa. On 30 September she sailed from Brisbane to Melbourne on the Cintra and on 9 October from Melbourne to Fremantle on the Wollowra. By late 1903 Miriam had taken up the position of matron at Topsham Hospital, which was located at 233 Stirling Street and owned by Dr. Haynes (of the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund committee). The building had previously housed a private hospital run by Isabella Tchan (see later). In 1904 Sister Plover and Nurse Rose each assumed part-ownership of Topsham Hospital with Dr. Haynes.
Never entirely recovering from the effects of typhoid, Miriam Plover sold her interest in Topsham Hospital to Nurses Farquharson and Boehn and on 22 January 1910 sailed to the eastern states on the Karoola to recuperate in colder climates. Later that year she appears to have sailed from Melbourne to London on the Afric, arriving on 1 August. By mid-December she had returned to Perth. Unfortunately, from this point on we lose track of Miriam Plover.
SUPERINTENDENT NICOLAY
Mary Nicolay returned to Australia once again on the steamer Narrung, which left Cape Town on 22 May 1901. On board were 31 returning soldiers from Victoria and New South Wales – some invalided, but most having received their discharge – along with Sisters Annie Thomson and Diana Tiddy, both of whom had departed the previous year on the Euryalus with the Victorian contingent of nurses.
The Narrung arrived at Port Adelaide – its first Australian stop – on Thursday 13 June, and some of the soldiers disembarked to take the train. The ship continued and reached Melbourne on Sunday 16 June, where the rest of the soldiers and the three nurses disembarked. The nurses were among the guests entertained the following day at Victoria Barracks on St. Kilda Road by the representatives of the Victorian Government.
Mary Nicolay and Diana Thomson both made speeches, Superintendent Nicolay stating that she was very pleased to be back again in Australia and to have returned with soldiers as fellow passengers. She told the guests that the nursing sisters had had a hard time of it in South Africa, but the work had been made easier by the good conduct of the Australians. She had never forgotten that she was an Australian and had worn her Western Australian uniform as long as it remained wearable. Finally, however, she had had to part with it and instead wore the uniform of the Army Nursing Service, though much against her will. Later that day she left for Western Australia aboard the RMS Arcadia.
After Mary Nicolay returned to Western Australia late in 1901, she accepted a position as inspecting matron for the Western Australian government and travelled across the length and breadth of the state inspecting hospitals.
On 15 October 1939, at the age of 89, Mary Nicolay died at Perth Hospital and was buried two days later at Karrakatta Cemetery.
SISTERS BROOKS AND ROGERS
On 15 January 1901 there appeared in the West Australian a short letter from H. Ingram Rogers, Louisa Rogers’s brother, alerting readers to the fact that his sister had remained in South Africa with Sister Brooks: “For the information of those of your readers who are interested in the West Australian nurses lately disbanded in South Africa I would like to say that I have just heard that Nurses Brooks and Rogers have been re-engaged by the military authorities, and were, when the mail left, on duty in the Wynberg Hospital, Capetown.”
After leaving No. 15 GH at Howick, Sisters Brooks and Rogers had been posted to No. 1 GH at Wynberg. They were now members of the PCANSR. After five or so months at Wynberg, they were ordered to proceed to De Aar in northern Cape Colony, possibly to No. 3 Stationary Hospital. In a letter to her family in Goroke, Victoria printed in the Horsham Times on 4 June 1901, Beatrice Brooks describes the journey:
“Kroom [Krom] River: I am on the warpath again and in the war this time, for even as I write there is a fight going on a few miles from us. But to begin at the beginning. Last Saturday, 3rd inst. [likely Saturday 4 May 1901], on coming off duty, Nurse Rogers and myself got orders to proceed to De Aar the following day. We left Wynberg at 6 on Sunday evening and caught the mail train at Cape Town at 9 p.m. We travelled all Sunday night and up to 4 p.m. on Monday, when we reached Beaufort West. As it was not considered safe to travel any further at night time we remained there till day light the following morning, when we started again, but had only reached Kroom [Krom] River when we were stopped by the information that the Boers a little further on had been pulling up the line and a fight was even then going on.
“So here we are stranded, I cannot say for how long. Fortunately we have some bread and butter, which we purchased at a cottage some distance from the line at a most extortionate price. To get it we had to scramble through the bush, with-wait-a-bit thorns holding us back – one ran right through my shoe, thick leather, too. There are 15 Tommies and an officer left here to guard the train. The rest have joined in the fight. I hope it does not last long, for it is rather tiresome sitting in a train all day.
“Three days later. We lost several men in the skirmish that day, and several were wounded. The Boers behaved in their usual cowardly fashion – surrendering, and then, as soon as our men came from under cover, shooting them down. Our train went on that night with an armored train to escort it, and on Wednesday morning we reached De Aar. This is a field hospital, so we have very few comforts. I realise now that I am on active service; we were so comfortable before that we were inclined to forget it. Sister Rogers and I have a bell tent between us. You can’t understand all that means. We can only stand up straight in the centre, there is scarcely room to turn and everything is covered with red dust. I have an entire ward – such a bare comfortless ward, with only just room to pass between the [beds?]. We have dust storms and thunder storms alternately, and to-day a cloud of locusts passed over the camp, almost darkening the sun for half an hour.”
It is not known how long Beatrice Brooks and Louisa Rogers remained at De Aar. They may have shortly afterwards proceeded to Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Pretoria or elsewhere. Regardless, in August 1901 Sister Brooks was detailed for duty aboard the Tagus and on 31 August departed Cape Town for Southampton with around 350 sick and wounded men and a number of sick nurses. The Tagus arrived at Southampton on 20 September.
After returning to South Africa, on 25 November Beatrice Brooks departed once again for Southampton, this time aboard the hospital ship Avoca, which was carrying an unknown number of invalids. Among the ship’s nursing staff was PCANSR nursing sister Rose Shappere – who, we may recall, was the first Australian nurse to serve in South Africa. The Avoca arrived at Southampton on 19 December, and both Beatrice and Rose rejoined the ship for the return passage.
Louisa Rogers, meanwhile, had remained in South Africa and was still serving when Beatrice Brooks returned in January 1902. Both had now qualified for the King’s South Africa Medal, which was awarded to military and certain civilian personnel who had served in South Africa on or after 1 January 1902 and had by 1 June 1902 completed 18 months’ continuous or non-continuous service. Annabella Emmins was the only other of the 11 Western Australian nurses to receive the King’s South Africa Medal.
Beatrice and Louisa (and Annabella) had also qualified for the Queen’s South Africa Medal – as had the other Western Australians and in fact every nurse serving in South Africa. The Queen’s Medal was awarded to all military and certain civilian personnel serving in South Africa for any length of time between 11 October 1899 and 31 May 1902.
At the end of her service, Louisa Rogers travelled to England and by February 1904 had been appointed to the position of superintendent nurse at The Infirmary in Christchurch, Dorset. By 1911 she was living at Morpeth in Northumberland, England, where she was Assistant Superintendent of Nurses, and by 1921 she was living in Paddington, London and was Inspector of Nurses at the Railyard Mission. It is not known with any certainty where and when she died.
After completing her service, Beatrice Brooks returned to Australia– possibly in December 1903 on the Omrah from England. She gained a certificate at Melbourne Hospital in 1906 (in November of that year becoming a member of the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses’ Association, where she is named as Bertha Elizabeth Brooks); a certificate in midwifery at the Women’s Hospital in Melbourne; a matron’s certificate; and a certificate in fever nursing. Beatrice then moved to New Zealand and in September 1909 gained her New Zealand nursing registration. She lived in the town of Wanganui on the North Island and in 1910 established Belverdale Hospital with the sponsorship of four local doctors.
In January 1916 Beatrice enlisted in the New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS) as a staff nurse and served under Matron J. Bicknell on the hospital ship Maheno. Named as her next of kin in her military papers is “Mrs. E. H. Aitken (sister), Temora, New South Wales.” This is undoubtedly Edith Ellen/Helen Brooks, daughter of Clara Guy and William Brooks, who grew up in Goroke district and in 1908 married James Thomas Aitken of Natimuk, a town close to Goroke. Edith Brooks’s father was William Brooks, a farmer in Goroke, who is named as the father of “Nurse Brooks” in the story in the Horsham Times referred to above.
Beatrice was discharged from the NZANS on 8 February 1917 and in September that year was awarded the Royal Red Cross (Second Class) for her valuable service. In December she married Thomas Mitchell, a sheep farmer, and moved to his property, ‘Ngaturi,’ in Fordell, Wanganui district. She remained in Wanganui until her death on 6 July 1969.
SISTERS EMMINS, MILNE AND SPEERS
In November 1900 Annabella Emmins, Bessie Milne and Louisa Speers relocated with No. 7 GH from Estcourt to Pretoria, around 430 kilometres to the north. Thereafter the three nurses remained together in Pretoria until June 1901.
On 28 June 1901 Louisa Speers, who had now completed her service, was detailed for duty aboard the SS Aurania, which was carrying hundreds of sick and wounded troops, as well as a number of sick nurses, to England. The ship arrived at Southampton on 17 July, and thereafter Louisa appears to have stayed. In 1902 she married Albert Henry Dunn in Norfolk and gave birth to two daughters. She lived in Norfolk for at least 19 years but by 1925 had returned to Australia and was living in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn. She became a member of the South African Returned Soldiers’ Association. Louisa died in Camberwell, Melbourne in 1933 at the age of 66.
Bessie Milne’s service finished in August 1901. On 12 August she sailed from Durban aboard the hospital ship Avoca as a member of the ship’s nursing staff and arrived at Southampton on 6 September. After staying with relatives at ‘Mansfield’ in Gospel Oak, London, she departed for Fremantle on 18 October on the P&O steamer Australia, hoping to be back in Adelaide soon after Christmas. She departed Adelaide for Fremantle on 29 January 1902 aboard the Buninyong. In 1903 Bessie married Charles Mitton Almond in Claremont and eventually returned to South Australia. She died in 1928 in the Barossa.
Annabella Emmins remained in South Africa for the duration of the war and afterwards worked at the Somerset Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. She returned to Australia in 1909 and in October that year married Thomas Gawn, a saddler, in Brisbane. Gawn had served with the 20th Company of the New Zealand Sixth Contingent during the war. They lived at Drillham and Cooran before moving to Nerang on the Gold Coast, where they opened a general store. In the 1930s they moved to Price Street, where Annabella continued nursing in a small private hospital attached to the house. She was an honorary ambulance bearer and provided emergency care at her hospital until the nearest doctor, located in Southport, could attend. Annabella died at Nerang on 11 April 1940.
In 2018 Sister Emmins’s South African War medals were auctioned by Noble Numismatics in Sydney. (They fetched $7,000.) The collection comprised five items, of which the most prized were her Queen’s South Africa Medal and her King’s South Africa Medal. The collection also included a miniature Queen’s South Africa Medal with five clasps (Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901 and South Africa 1902); a Guild of Saint Barnabas for Nurses Medal; and a Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve silver tippet badge – for Annabella Emmins, like Beatrice Brooks and Louisa Rogers, had joined the PCANSR.
SISTER BOLE
Apparently having remained at No. 4 GH at Mooi River until the end of her service, Elizabeth Bole departed South Africa on 22 December 1900 aboard the SS Formosa as part of the nursing staff. The ship was carrying around 340 invalided troops to England and arrived in mid-January 1901, presumably at Southampton.
Elizabeth seemingly stayed in England and on 25 June 1901 joined the PCANSR. She served for 15 months, partly or entirely at the Station Hospital in Portland, Dorset. Her service was terminated in October 1902, after which she worked at the District Hospital in Yeovil, Somerset.
Upon the termination of her service with the PCANSR, Elizabeth had been offered free passage to Australia, provided it was booked within 12 months, and on 27 November 1903 she embarked from Tilbury in Essex aboard the RMS India. The India arrived at Fremantle on 31 December 1903 and Port Adelaide on 3 January 1904, and here Elizabeth disembarked. In due course she returned to Western Australia and lived on Claisebrook Road in East Perth.
In November 1911 Elizabeth was officially registered with the Midwives’ Registration Board of Western Australia, having trained at the London Obstetrical Society – either prior to her return to Australia in 1904 or during a subsequent visit to England. She was subsequently employed by the Department of Public Health as an inspectress of maternity homes.
By then Elizabeth had joined the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). Modelled on the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), which had replaced the Army Nursing Service in 1902 – or more precisely modelled on the PCANSR, since the AANS was a reserve force – the AANS had come into being on 30 July 1902 as a division of the new Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC). According to its Constitution, the AANS was a voluntary body formed to supply trained and efficient nurses under an organised system to base and field hospitals in times of national emergency. Each state was to have an establishment of one lady superintendent, one matron and a number of nursing sisters. New South Wales and Victoria would have 24 nursing sisters each; Queensland and South Australia, 14 each; and Western Australia and Tasmania, 10 each.
By the end of 1906 all states except Western Australia had appointed lady superintendents, and it was not until November 1909 that Major Arthur T. White, the PMO for Western Australia (who had been a member of the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund committee), began to advertise in the newspapers for candidates for enrolment.
Elizabeth duly enrolled and in June 1911 gained her Certificate of Efficiency. She had, according to the wording on the certificate, “attended a course of lectures on the organization of military hospitals, hygiene and Military Surgery” (quoted in Hobbs, p. 58). She was number 23, which presumably means that she was the 23rd nursing sister to be appointed to the AANS in Western Australia. On 1 April 1912 Elizabeth was appointed Western Australia’s matron (or at least one of Western Australia’s matrons, if the nursing strength had increased since establishment).
When the Great War began in August 1914, Elizabeth did not wait to be mobilised for service with the AANS. Instead, she decided to go to England to join the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve (QAIMNSR), which had been established in 1908. To avoid upsetting Princess Christian, the PCANSR was not abolished outright but allowed to fall into abeyance.
Elizabeth’s resignation as AANS matron was accepted on 23 November 1914. By then she had already sailed to England, having departed Fremantle on 31 August aboard the SS Malwa. After arriving in London on 6 October, she joined the QAIMNSR as a nursing sister on 15 October. She served at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in London until 4 April 1916, when she was discharged as medically unfit due to the lingering effects of influenza. During her service she received a Mention in Despatches. From May 1916 to October 1919 she worked with the British Red Cross.
Elizabeth returned to Australia on HMT Wahehe in December 1919 and became matron of the Preparatory School at East Guildford. In September 1920 she presented a paper titled ‘Nursing and Its Relation to the Home’ at a conference organised by the Certificated Health Inspectors’ Association of Western Australia held in Perth.
Elizabeth Bole died in East Perth on 24 February 1925 and was buried two days later at Karrakatta Cemetery. Susannah Armstrong was among those attending the burial service, which concluded with a sounding of ‘The Last Post.’
SISTERS ARMSTRONG, TCHAN AND NAYLOR
As we have seen, Susannah Armstrong returned to Australia with Isabella Tchan in late December 1900. In 1902 she married a certain Michael Davern in Gingin, northeast of Perth, and by the end of that year had opened a private maternity hospital off Stirling Street in Perth under her maiden name. It is not known what happened to Michael Davern.
Susannah Armstrong enlisted in the AANS in 1915. After serving in Egypt, she returned to Australia aboard the Marathon in 1916, thereafter assisting with the repatriation of Australian troops. Later, she became the owner and matron of St. Helen’s Hospital on Stirling Street in Perth. Susannah Armstrong died in Perth on 2 August 1939 and was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery.
Within a year of her return from South Africa, Isabella Tchan had established a private hospital at 233 Stirling Street in Perth. By October 1902 she had moved premises to Rowe Street, and later she moved to Midland Junction, just east of Perth. By then, the premises at 233 Stirling Street had been taken over by Dr. Haynes (of the Transvaal Nurses’ Fund committee), who, together with Miriam Plover as his matron, established Topsham Hospital.
In November 1911 Isabella was officially registered with the Midwives’ Registration Board of Western Australia, and at the end of July 1914 she took over the Guildford Private Hospital on James Street, East Guildford from Nurse Wood. Isabella Tchan died at Guildford in February 1917.
Sister L. A. Naylor remains an enigma. Nothing more is heard of her – except perhaps a fleeting reference in the Hospital Nursing Mirror on 13 July 1901, in which reference is made to the arrival from South Africa of the SS Montfort at Southampton on 5 July 1901 with Sisters N. G. Hill, J. A. Clarke, W. A. Naylor and Janey Lempriere on board. Since the record shows no other nurse with the surname Naylor as having served in South Africa, it may be the case that “W. A. Naylor” is L. A. Naylor misspelt. We will probably never know.
SISTERS LEMPRIERE AND HUSTON
Sister Janey Lempriere had remained at No. 2 GH in Wynberg, Cape Town until the end of May 1900, at which time the hospital received orders to relocate to Pretoria. Travelling by rail, and following delays at Bloemfontein and Kroonstad due to Boer attacks along the line ahead of them, Janey and the other staff arrived at Pretoria on 1 July. By 22 July No. 2 GH had reopened at the Boys’ Model School. Sometime later Janey was transferred to No. 15 GH at Howick and in June 1901 she left for Southampton on well-earned leave. Returning to South Africa, she served for several more months before departing Cape Town on 21 November aboard the Nineveh for Melbourne with 60 Australian troops. The Nineveh arrived in Melbourne on 11 December 1901.
More will be written about Sister Lempriere in the future, but for now it is enough to say that 13 years after arriving back in Melbourne she sailed to Egypt with the first contingent of AANS nurses to serve in the Great War. She worked in military hospitals in Egypt, England and Australia, as well as on hospital ships, variously as head sister and matron. Janey died on 22 August 1950 in Melbourne.
Sister Beatrice Huston served at No. 3 GH in Rondebosch, Cape Town until May 1900, when she was transferred to Green Point Military Hospital in Cape Town. She remained there until around March 1901 and was then posted to Pretoria, She fell ill with enteric and was invalided to England, arriving at Southampton on 18 May. Beatrice stayed in England for three months as the guest of Lady Dudley – Georgina Ward, Countess of Dudley – who provided board and lodging for invalided officers and nurses.
While in England, Beatrice was awarded her Queen’s South Africa Medal during a ceremony held in the grounds of Marlborough House. At the end of August 1901 she returned to South Africa. She was sent to Kimberley, where she remained for six months, and around March 1902 was transferred to Vryburg. She had now qualified for the King’s South Africa Medal.
On 24 August 1902 Beatrice returned to Australia aboard the Athenic, arriving at Hobart on 12 September. Continuing her journey, on 18 September she arrived in Brisbane on the Arawatta. On 29 she arrived at Clermont.
Beatrice eventually returned to South Africa and in 1911 married Thomas Joseph Mary Black. She died in Cape Town in 1942.
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