List of nurses who died in World War I

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An estimated 1,500 nurses from a number of countries lost their lives during World War I.[1] Some died from disease or accidents, and some from enemy action.

Australia

Grave of Nurse Norma Mowbray, Cairo, 1916

29 Australian nurses died from disease or injuries; 25 of these died on active service, and 4 died in Australia from injuries or illness sustained during their service.[2] Most of these nurses were serving in the Australian Army Nursing Service; however, a small number were serving with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, one of a number of British Army nursing services during World War I.[2] Other Australian women made their own way to Europe and joined the British Red Cross, private hospitals or other allied services.[3]

Nurses serving with the Australian Army Nursing Service

More information Name, Date of death ...
Name Date of death Circumstances of death Place of death
Louisa Bicknell 25 June 1915 Sepsis poisoning Cairo, Egypt
Kathleen Brennan 24 November 1918 Spanish flu Leicester, England[4][5]
Emily Clare 17 October 1918 Pneumonia India[6]
Ruby Dickinson 23 June 1918 Pneumonia United Kingdom[7]
May Hennessy 9 April 1919 Malaria[8] Bendigo, Australia[9]
Hilda Knox 17 February 1917 Meningitis[10] France[11]
Irene McPhail 4 August 1920 Tuberculosis Melbourne, Australia[12]
Edith Moorhouse 24 November 1918 Illness France[13]
Norma Mowbray 21 January 1916 Pneumonia Cairo, Egypt[14]
Gertrude Munro 10 September 1918 Pneumonia and malaria Greece[15]
Letitia Moreton 11 November 1916[16] Enteric fever (typhoid) India[17]
Lily Nugent 21 February 1918 Phthisis (tuberculosis) Sydney, Australia[18]
Amy O'Grady 12 August 1916 Cholera[19] Bombay (Mumbai), India[20]
Rosa O'Kane 21 December 1918 Spanish flu[21] Perth, Australia[22]
Katherine Porter 16 July 1919 Pneumonia Sydney, Australia[23]
Kathleen Power 13 August 1916 Illness India[24]
Doris Ridgway 6 January 1919 Pneumonia[25] Perth, Australia[26]
Elizabeth Rothery 15 June 1918 Illness Beechworth, Australia[27]
Mary Stafford 20 March 1919 Leukemia Torrens Park, Australia[28]
Ada Thompson 1 January 1919 Spanish flu[29] Perth, Australia[30]
Fanny Tyson 20 April 1919 Illness Sutton Veny, England[31]
Jean Miles-Walker 30 October 1918 Pneumonia Sutton Veny, England[32][33]
Beatrice Watson 2 June 1916 Illness Suez, Egypt[34][35]
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Nurses serving with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

More information Name, Date of death ...
Name Date of death Circumstances of death Place of death
Charlotte Berrie 8 January 1919 Pneumonia Jerusalem[36]
Narrelle Hobbes 10 May 1918 Liver cancer At sea[37][38]
Myrtle Wilson 23 December 1915 Pneumonia France[39]
Edith Blake 26 February 1918 drowned after hospital ship torpedoed English Channel [40][41]
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Volunteers serving with the Australian Red Cross

More information Name, Date of death ...
Name Date of death Circumstances of death Place of death
Louisa Riggall 31 August 1918 Haemorrhage France[3]
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Canada

Main article: List of Canadian nurses who died in World War I

53 Canadian nurses lost their lives during the war.[42] In one incident, on 27 June 1918, 14 nurses were killed when their hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed while travelling from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool, England.[43] The nurses who died were:

  • Mary Agnes McKenzie.[12]
  • Christina Campbell.[13]
  • Carola Josephine Douglas.[14]
  • Alexina Dussault.[14]
  • Minnie Aenath Follette.[14]
  • Margaret Jane Fortescue.[14]
  • Minnie Katherine Gallaher.[14]
  • Jessie Mabel McDiarmid.[14]
  • Rena McLean.[14]
  • Mary Belle Sampson.[14]
  • Gladys Irene Sare.[14]
  • Anna Irene Stamers.[15]
  • Jean Templeman.[15]

Netherlands

Rosa Vecht (18 July 1881 – 23 January 1915) died when she was injured by shrapnel at Veurne in West Flanders, while saying goodbye before a planned evacuation. She died after an operation to amputate her leg.[44]

New Zealand

Plaque at Waimate Hospital to nurses who died on the SS Marquette

16 New Zealand nurses died during the war, including 10 who died in the sinking of the troop ship SS Marquette.[45]

More information Name, Date of death ...
Name Date of death Circumstances of death Place of death
Marion Brown 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Isabel Clark 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Ella Cooke 8 September 1917 Hit by a train Alexandria, Egypt
Catherine Fox 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Mary Gorman 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Ada Gilbert Hawken[46] 28 October 1915 Enteric fever (typhoid) Alexandria, Egypt
Nona Hildyard 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Helena Isdell 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Mabel Jamieson 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Elise Kemp 20 October 1917 Killed when a German aircraft bombed the field hospital she was in Flanders, France
Lily Lind 21 November 1916 Tuberculosis, contracted while nursing At sea, on board SS Maheno
Mary Rae 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Lorna Rattray 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Margaret Rogers 23 October 1915 Drowned in the sinking of the SS Marquette Aegean Sea
Esther Maude Tubman[46] 18 September 1918 Cerebrospinal meningitis Salisbury Hospital, United Kingdom
Mabel Whishaw[46] 10 November 1918 Influenza Featherson Camp, New Zealand
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Romania

Ecaterina Teodoroiu was a Romanian nurse who enlisted as a soldier and died on 3 September 1917 during active service.[47]

United Kingdom

Edith Cavell

The National Memorial Arboretum has a memorial to nurses who served in the first and Second World Wars. The memorial includes the names of nearly 1,300 nurses who died during or as a direct result of their wartime service.[48] The names were taken from research carried out by Yvonne McEwen. McEwen created rolls of honour for the two wars, and deposited copies in national libraries in Edinburgh, Aberystwyth, Belfast, Dublin and London. The London copy is on permanent display in the Royal College of Nursing Library and can be accessed by appointment.[49]

Most nurses were part of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS). At the start of the war there were fewer than 300 nurses; four years later when the war ended it had over 10,000 nurses in its ranks.[50] According to the British Red Cross, "128 nursing members, 11 general service members and six Joint War Committee hospital members were killed."[51]

Edith Cavell was executed for treason by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915 in Brussels, Belgium.

Marjory Eva May Edwards served for three and a half years in Britain and France and died of measles in England on 4 January 1918. Her name is listed on the village war memorial at St Mary's Church at Streatley, Berkshire.[52]

Catherine Miller was working at the 1st Western General Hospital in Liverpool, England when she died on 24 December 1918. She had contracted malaria while serving in Russia.[53][54]

Scottish nurses

An estimated 150 British nurses were killed during World War 1. Of those killed 40 were Scottish. Four of the nurses were killed by enemy action including Agnes Murdoch Climie, a staff nurse who trained at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.[55] Miss Climie was a member of the Territorial Force Nursing Service and based at a general hospital in France while she was on the staff of the 4th Scottish General Hospital, Stobhill. Miss Climie was not on duty during the bombardment but returned to her ward and was killed while singing to a patient who was nervous.[56] Miss Climie was killed instantly while in the same incident Sister Mabel Milne of Perth, who trained at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and was attached to the 2nd Scottish General Hospital died a short time after being wounded. Two Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs), Miss Daisie Coles (2nd Scottish Hospital) and Miss E Thompson (1st Scottish Hospital) were also killed.[57][58]

Three Scottish nurses drowned while serving on hospital ships during WW1. A further 33 Scottish nurses died from diseases acquired while on military service.[59] Two nurses were members of the regular Military Nursing Service and the others were members of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve and the Territorial Force Nursing Service.[60]

In March 1915, four Scottish nurses died in Serbia of typhus.[61] They were part of a group of Scottish women – nurses, doctors and volunteers – who had travelled to Serbia to establish Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service:

A memorial with the names of the 40 Scottish nurses killed in WW1 was erected by members of the Military Nursing Service, and unveiled at the Cathedral of St Giles in Edinburgh in 1921. The memorial is a bronze tablet set in green marble.[60]

HMT Osmanieh sinking, 1917

On 31 December 1917, the British troop ship HMS Osmanieh (1906) struck a mine near the entrance to Alexandria Harbour. The ship sank in under 10 minutes and almost 200 service personnel died. Among the dead were eight nurses.[62] Two of them belonged to the Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS):

  • Nellie Hawley
  • Dorothea Roberts

and the rest belonged to the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD):

  • Gertrude Bytheway
  • Una Duncanson
  • Lilian Midwood
  • Hermione Rogers
  • Catherine Ball
  • Winifred Brown

Five Sisters memorial

Main article: Five Sisters window
Five Sisters Window, York Minster

York Minster’s Five Sisters window is the only memorial in the UK dedicated to all the women of the British Empire who lost their lives in World War I.[63][64] Ten oak screens were added to the north side of the St Nicholas Chapel. They list the name of every woman who died in the line of service during WWI. An inscription thereon reads, “This screen records the names of women of the Empire who gave their lives in the war 1914–1918 to whose memory the Five Sisters window was restored by women”.[65] There are 1,513 names listed on the screens.[66]

United States

Nurses Clara Ayres and Helen Burnett Wood were the first two women to be killed while part of the United States military when they died on 17 May 1917, following an accident on board USS Mongolia.[67]

Helen Fairchild died in France on 18 January 1918, from post-operative complications following surgery for an ulcer.[68]

Lucy Nettie Fletcher (1886–1918) was the first Red Cross nurse in General Pershing's army to die in the performance of duty.[69]

References

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