Vera Mary Brittain was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism.
Dame Katharine Furse, was a British nursing and military administrator. She led the British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment force during the First World War, and served as the inaugural Director of the Women's Royal Naval Service (1917–19). Furse was also the first Director of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (1928–38).
Dame Beryl Carnegy Oliver, Lady Oliver, was a British charity administrator as well as the British Red Cross Society's Director of Education.
The Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS) was established in 1908, part of the reform of the British auxiliary forces introduced by Richard Haldane which created the Territorial Force. Nurses with at least three years of training were able to volunteer for the service, and facilities comprised 23 large buildings earmarked for use as hospitals in the event of war. The TFNS was augmented by the affiliation of Voluntary Aid Detachments. On the outbreak of the First World War, the hospitals were commissioned and up to 2,784 nurses mobilised to staff them. By the end of the war, up to 8,140 nurses had served with the TFNS, 2,280 of them in hospitals and casualty clearing stations abroad. After the war, the TFNS became the Territorial Army Nursing Service in line with the reconstitution of the Territorial Force as the Territorial Army.
Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois was an emergency evacuation hospital serving the French 3rd Army Corps during World War I. It was organised and staffed by British volunteers and served French soldiers.
The role of Australian women in World War I was focused mainly upon their involvement in the provision of nursing services. Australian women also played a significant role on the homefront, where they filled jobs made vacant by men joining the armed forces. Women also undertook fundraising and recruiting activities as well as organising comfort packages for soldiers serving overseas. Around the issue of conscription, women were involved in campaigning on both sides of the debate, while they were also equally involved in the New South Wales strike in 1917. Nevertheless, despite this involvement, women have never occupied a central position in the Australian version of the ANZAC myth, although since the 1970s their role has been examined in more detail as a result of the emergence of feminist historiography, and specialist histories such as the history of nursing.
The history of nursing in the United Kingdom relates to the development of the profession since the 1850s. The history of nursing itself dates back to ancient history, when the sick were cared for in temples and places of worship. In the early Christian era, nursing in the United Kingdom was undertaken by certain women in the Christian Church, their services being extended to patients in their homes. These women had no real training by today's standards, but experience taught them valuable skills, especially in the use of herbs and folk drugs, and some gained fame as the physicians of their era. Remnants of the religious nature of nurses remains in Britain today, especially with the retention of the job title "Sister" for a senior female nurse.
Dame Anne Margaret Bryans was a British humanitarian and healthcare administrator, remembered as an "indomitable doyenne of the caring profession." She spent much of her life in the service of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England, serving with distinction with the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and Joint War Organisation during World War II. She was Chairman of the Joint Service Hospitals Welfare and VAD Committee from 1960 to 1989.
Alice Appleford, was an Australian civilian and military nurse who took part in both World Wars. She has been described as Australia's most decorated woman. During the First World War she served in hospitals in Egypt and France and was one of only seven Australian nurses to be awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. In the Second World War she held a senior post within the Australian Army Medical Women's Service. In 1949 she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest award made by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Joint War Organisation (JWO) was a combined operation of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem during the World Wars. It was first created in 1914 and ceased operations when World War I ended in 1919; the organisation was re-formed upon the British entry into World War II in 1939 and was active until its permanent disbanding in 1947. The Joint War Committee (JWC), a non-government administrative body, controlled the JWO and the Joint War Finance Committee managed its finances and concentrated on raising donations and funding.
Marjorie Clare Roche was an Australian nurse and army officer, active in the Red Cross. Born in Gympie, Queensland, she became a member of the local Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in 1914, serving as a secretary and working at a number of convalescent hospitals til 1921. She was demobilised and retired in 1947, having been given "the commandant-in-chief's card for outstanding service".
Mabel Brown Clint, was a Canadian nurse and author. She served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France, Belgium, and Greece during the First World War. Born in Quebec, she worked as a nurse and volunteered for duty when war was declared in 1914. She embarked for the United Kingdom with the first set of troops and was among the first 100 nurses to serve near the Western Front in France. She published her memoir, Our Bit: Memories of War Service by a Canadian Nursing-Sister, in 1934.
Marjory Eva May Edwards was a British V.A.D. nurse who served in the British Red Cross Society during the First World War. 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 of England church at Streatley, Berkshire and she is a rare female name on a First World War British war memorial.
Emma Duffin was a Northern Irish nurse, diarist and welfare worker.
Henrietta Tayler, known as Hetty, was a London-born Jacobite scholar and First World War nurse.
Dame Ethel Hope Becher, was a British nurse who served in the War Office as matron-in-chief of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps from 1910 to 1919.
Muriel Knox Doherty, was an Australian nurse who served as a matron in the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service during the Second World War and then as a member of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
Margaret Elwyn Sparshott was a British nurse. She was the principal matron of Manchester Royal Infirmary, and of the Territorial Force Nursing Service at Manchester, England. During the First World War, she used 2nd Western General Hospital as a base, and had the assistance of St John Ambulance, the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VADs) and the Red Cross. Within this framework she was responsible for the running of twenty-two large auxiliary hospitals, including the field hospitals for the war wounded, in Stockport, Salford and Manchester. Her duty extended to coping with increased patient numbers during the 1918–1920 flu pandemic.
