Author: Luke Danes

‘All the hard work is done by the voluntary nurses, assisting with the dressings, making the beds, sweeping and dusting, attending to the meals, washing up, etc. They are to be specially commended – some are married women (one I know of has a husband at the front), and some are girls, and they have voluntarily turned out to do war work.’

Private Crouch, an Australian patient, describing Endell Street to his father

(Sydney Daily Telegraph, 19 November 1915)

The First World War military hospital at Endell Street in Covent Garden was best known for being the only such hospital to be run and staffed exclusively by women, led by the eminent suffragettes, surgeon Louisa Garrett Anderson and doctor Flora Murray. But what is perhaps less well known is the role played by the volunteers who assisted the specialist staff and thirty-six trained nursing sisters in almost every way imaginable, and made the hospital a resounding success in the treatment of some twenty-six thousand wounded soldiers, and a popular place for them to recover; ‘I don’t mind how many times I get wounded if they bring me back to Endell-street every time’ quipped one patient in 1916.

Endell Street Hospital appears to have had three main sources of volunteers: those who had previously been members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and long-term followers of Anderson and Murray, those who had already volunteered for the Women’s Hospital Corps (WHC) at Paris and Wimereux, and those of the Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD). In all there were around 100 volunteers at Endell Street, ‘London society girls and women’, and they wore a unique khaki uniform specially designed by Anderson and Murray. The volunteers were referred to as ‘nurses’ and were all given the rank of ‘orderly’.

This study focuses on ten of the women of the VAD who volunteered at Endell Street at some point between the hospital’s opening in April 1915 and its closure in October 1919. The origins of the VAD itself go back to 1909/10 when the decision was taken to form a dedicated unit to deal with wartime injuries, a responsibility which had previously been undertaken by a confusing arrangement of the St John’s Ambulance Association, and latterly the Red Cross.  Although not strictly an all-female organisation by any means, the VAD was nonetheless predominantly made up of well-off women from middle class backgrounds who could not possibly accept paid employment in wartime. What attracted women of such eminent social standing to a repurposed Victorian workhouse, in what The Lady’s Pictorial described as ‘a somewhat grimy thoroughfare’, was a sense of nationalism and duty, combined with chivalric idealism and pride in what they were doing.

Flora Murray described the volunteers as ‘Gently nurtured, expensively but ineffectively educated, […] unequipped and untrained’, but these women and girls gave everything that they could and in one sad instance, that included her life.  These are their stories.

Alice Victoria Blake

Alice Victoria Blake was born around 1888 into a wealthy family who lived in the Hertfordshire village of Much Hadham. Alice joined the fledgling VAD in its infancy in 1910 and was to experience a busy wartime service. Her first posting was to a VAD hospital in Hampshire between October and December 1914, before being sent to a French military hospital between January and March 1915. In April she arrived back in England and volunteered at the Farnham VAD auxiliary hospital until July. In August she returned to France and volunteered at the ‘Allies Hospital’ at Yvetot until November. In January 1916 Alice returned to the VAD hospital in Hampshire, and volunteered there until April. Alice returned to France yet again in May to volunteer at the Hôpital Temporaire d’Arc-en-Barrois, and remained there until November. Alice arrived at Endell Street in July 1917 and was still serving there at the end of the war.

Nora Chance

Nora Chance was from the hamlet of Crofton, near Carlisle in Cumbria. She joined the VAD on 1 January 1914, and on 25 March 1915 started volunteering for around thirty hours per month at the newly-opened Chadwick Auxiliary Hospital in Carlisle. Her duties were to ‘assist in care of clothing and linen repairs’, and these skills were no doubt put to further use when she was seconded to Endell Street at the beginning of 1916. Nora was still volunteering at Endell Street at the end of the war, and was praised by Flora Murray for her lengthy service, ‘many months of which were spent in the operating theatre.’

Kathleen Crawford

Kathleen Crawford joined the VAD on 10 September 1915 and volunteered at Endell Street until July 1917. In November 1917 she became a motor driver for the Army Service Corps (ASC).

Helen Mary Du Buisson

Helen Mary Du Buisson was born on 29 April 1896 in Farnham, Surrey. She joined the VAD in 1915 and volunteered at Lady Onslow’s Red Cross Hospital at Clandon Park near Guildford between December of that year and June 1916. She then spent ten days at the Red Cross hospital in Carmarthen, before returning to Surrey and volunteering at the Guildford Red Cross hospital annex between August and October 1916. Helen then concentrated on training to be a masseuse at Dr Mary Coghill-Hawkes’s Swedish Institute, and registered in June 1917. Helen arrived at Endell Street in February 1918, where the masseuses played a vital role in the rehabilitation of orthopaedic injuries and ‘toiled over the patients without ceasing.’ She remained at Endell Street until April, and in May was transferred to the Red Cross hospital at Earls Colne in Essex, where she completed her service in September 1918.

Marcia Wilshire Geddes

Marcia Wilshire Geddes was born in Westminster in 1898, and by 1911 was attending boarding school at Hove in Sussex. At the start of the war Marcia was volunteering at the Swedish War Hospital in Paddington Street, Marylebone. Marcia volunteered ‘whole time’ on the wards at Endell Street between August 1915 and August 1917 whilst living in Kensington.

Gwen Isaacson

Gwen Isaacson was born in Rosslyn, Midlothian, in around 1886, and by 1901 she was living in Rugby in Warwickshire. Gwen joined the VAD in November 1914 as a Special Service Member of the Northants Detachment, and volunteered at the Hospital of St Cross in Rugby until February 1915, followed by the Thornby Auxiliary Military Hospital between July 1915 and September 1917. Gwen volunteered at Endell Street between October 1917 and July 1918 for four days a week. She went on to volunteer for three days a week at the Garland Hospital in Mayfair until 1919. On conclusion of her service, Gwen was praised by her commandant for her ‘most excellent work’ and was ‘highly recommended’.

Jane Veale Mitchell

Jane Veale Mitchell was born around 1881 and joined the VAD in 1914. Her first posting was to the No. 3 Auxiliary Hospital in Paris, followed by the Brondesbury Military Hospital in north London for two months. She then went to volunteer at the 4th Northern General Hospital in Lincoln between 1917 and 1918, before returning to London to volunteer at the Manor House Hospital, Golders Green, during May 1918. Jane volunteered at Endell Street during the second half of 1918. Her final posting was to the Seaford Sanatorium in East Sussex on 1 June 1919.

Eva Prior

Eva Prior was from Esher in Surrey, the youngest daughter of Henry Temple Prior, Master of the Supreme Court. She joined the VAD in May 1915 and volunteered at Esher Red Cross Hospital. Eva was in her second year at Endell Street when she contracted Vincent’s Angina, probably from working with infected wounds, and died soon after on 5 January 1918. In her unpublished memoirs, fellow VAD member Nina Last commented on the insanitary conditions at Endell Street, exacerbated by long hours and insufficient food, and recalled: ‘A young friend of only 21 reported sick to the home sister (a hard cruel woman) and was dead in 3 days’. Flora Murray paid tribute to Eva, saying that she was ‘loved by every one for her sweet disposition and her strength of character.’ Eva was the first of several volunteers to lose their lives at Endell Street.

Olive M Thompson

Olive M Thompson was born around 1896 in Burton-upon-Trent in Staffordshire, and joined the VAD in 1915. She initially volunteered at the VAD Red Cross Hospital in Burton-upon-Trent where her duties were described as ‘Kitchen helper’, before spending some time at Endell Street. She also worked at the Rolls Royce factory in Derby. Olive left the VAD in 1916 having volunteered for a total of 156 hours.

Agnes Mary Wood

Agnes Mary Wood was from Kensington, and spent the beginning of the war in France running her own ‘Recreation Hut under auspices of YM.CA’, before returning to England, where she joined the VAD on 5 March 1915. Between 22 February and 23 June 1917 she volunteered as a masseuse at Endell Street for three hours a day. From 1 October 1917 she was volunteering for four hours per day at the Rosslyn Lodge Auxiliary Hospital in Hampstead.

Notes

1 ‘Wounded Heroes’ Comforters’ was just one example of patients affectionately re-using the Women’s
Hospital Corps’ initials to show their appreciation to the volunteers; see Flora Murray, Women as Army
Surgeons: Being the History of the Women’s Hospital Corps in Paris, Wimereux and Endell Street, September
1914 – October 1919 (London, 1920), p. 200.
2 Daily Chronicle, 25 April 1916
3 Jennian F Geddes, ‘Deeds and Words in the Suffrage Military Hospital in Endell Street’, Medical History, Vol.
51, Issue 1, January 2007, pp. 79-98. p. 85, p. 90.
4 Sydney Daily Telegraph, 19 November 1915
5 Searching the Red Cross VAD Records (http://www.redcross.org.uk/en/About-us/Who- we-are/History- and-
origin/First-World- War) for ‘Endell’ produces fifty results and ‘Endall’, a further two. These ten women were
selected to give a wide cross section of volunteers.
6 Thekla Bowser, The Story of British V.A.D. Work in the Great War (London, 1917) second ed., pp. 20-27.
7 Henriette Donner, ‘Under the Cross – why V.A.D.s performed the filthiest task in the dirtiest war: Red Cross
women volunteers, 1914-1918’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 30, Issue 3, Spring 1997, pp. 687-704. p. 687.
8 The Lady’s Pictorial, 8 January 1916; Donner, p. 690.
9 Murray, p. 99.
10 Ancestry, all records: ‘Alice Victoria Blake’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red
Cross VAD Records: ‘Alice Victoria Blake’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]
11 Ancestry, all records: ‘Nora Chance’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red Cross VAD
Records: ‘Nora Chance’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/History- and-origin/ First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]; Murray, p. 203.
12 Red Cross VAD Records: ‘Kathleen Crawford’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]
13 Ancestry, all records: ‘Helen Mary Du Buisson’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red
Cross VAD Records: ‘Helen Mary Du Buisson’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]; Murray, p. 163. In 1928 Helen married into
the Twinings tea family and became Lady Twining. She died in 1975.
14 Ancestry, all records: ‘Marcia Wilshire Geddes’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red
Cross VAD Records: ‘Marcia Wilshire Geddes’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]
15 Ancestry, all records: ‘Gwen Isaacson’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red Cross
VAD Records: ‘Gwen Isaacson’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/History- and-origin/ First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]
16 Ancestry, all records: ‘Jane Veale Mitchell’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red
Cross VAD Records: ‘Jane Veale Mitchell’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]
17 Ancestry, all records: ‘Eva Prior’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red Cross VAD
Records: ‘Eva Prior’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/History- and-origin/First- World-War>
[last accessed 26 July 2017]; The British Journal of Nursing, Vol. 60, 12 January 1918, p. 22; Christine E Hallett,
‘Saving Lives on the Front Line’, History Today, Vol. 67, Issue 7, July 2017, pp. 24-35. p. 30; 7NLA/1/02b,
Transcript of ‘Nina’s War Memories’, (TWL@LSE), p. 10; Murray, p. 208.
18 Ancestry, all records: ‘Olive M Thompson’ <http://www.ancestry.co.uk> [last accessed 5 July 2017]; Red
Cross VAD Records: ‘Olive M Thompson’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]
19 Red Cross VAD Records: ‘Agnes Mary Wood’ <http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who- we-are/ History-and- origin/First-World- War> [last accessed 26 July 2017]