Mary Annie de Burgh Burt
Sister in the Scottish Women's Hospital, World War One
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Mary Annie De Burgh Burt (1874 - 1916) was a sister in the Scottish Women's Hospital (SWH), Girton & Newnham Unit, based in Troyes, France and Macedonia in World War One.[1][2]
Mary Annie de Burgh Burt | |
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| Born | 1874 |
| Died | 7 April 1916 (aged 41–42) Salonica, Greece |
Cause of death | Dysentery |
Resting place | Lambet Road Military Cemetery, Salonica, Greece |
| Occupation | Nurse |
| Organization | Scottish Women's Hospitals |
| Awards | French Red Cross Medal |
Burt was one of the Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Institute for nurses as a Health Visitor to Finsbury Social Workers’ Association.[3][4] When she joined the Scottish Women's Hospital as a Sister, Burt was living in London at 49 Norfolk Square, Hyde Park.[1] She had been a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) who brought together suffrage societies in the UK.[5] On 28 October 1915, a unit of women sponsored by the NUWSS from London left for Salonika left from Liverpool.[1]
Burt's unit had travelled with the French Expeditionary Force from France to Serbia and onto Salonika.[1] The women were exposed not only to the severe challenges for warfront medicine, but to challenges of extremes of weather in winter or summer in a tented hospital, and along with their patients exposed to the risks of malaria and dysentery.[6]
Mary Burt died on 7 April 1916, at the age of 42,[3] and was listed on 24 February 1917 among those of the staff at the SWH, who had died of dysentery.[1] Fellow staff mourned the death of their colleagues but had to continue nursing, of course.[7] She is buried at Lambet Road Military Cemetery, Salonica, Greece.[3]
Burt was awarded the French Red Cross Medal,[8] and was named among over 1500 women who died in the Great War on the roll of honour in York Minster's St Nicholas Chapel Five Sisters Window.[9][10]