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

Australia

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. 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. Other Australian women made their own way to Europe and joined the British Red Cross, private hospitals or other allied services.

Nurses serving with the Australian Army Nursing Service NameDate of deathCircumstances of deathPlace of deathLouisa Bicknell25 June 1915Sepsis poisoningCairo, EgyptKathleen Brennan24 November 1918Spanish fluLeicester, EnglandEmily Clare17 October 1918PneumoniaIndiaRuby Dickinson23 June 1918PneumoniaUnited KingdomMay Hennessy9 April 1919MalariaBendigo, AustraliaHilda Knox17 February 1917MeningitisFranceIrene McPhail4 August 1920TuberculosisMelbourne, AustraliaEdith Moorhouse24 November 1918IllnessFranceNorma Mowbray21 January 1916PneumoniaCairo, EgyptGertrude Munro10 September 1918Pneumonia and malariaGreeceLetitia Moreton11 November 1916Enteric fever (typhoid)IndiaLily Nugent21 February 1918Phthisis (tuberculosis)Sydney, AustraliaAmy O'Grady12 August 1916CholeraBombay (Mumbai), IndiaRosa O'Kane21 December 1918Spanish fluPerth, AustraliaKatherine Porter16 July 1919PneumoniaSydney, AustraliaKathleen Power13 August 1916IllnessIndiaDoris Ridgway6 January 1919PneumoniaPerth, AustraliaElizabeth Rothery15 June 1918IllnessBeechworth, AustraliaMary Stafford20 March 1919LeukemiaTorrens Park, AustraliaAda Thompson1 January 1919Spanish fluPerth, AustraliaFanny Tyson20 April 1919IllnessSutton Veny, EnglandJean Miles-Walker30 October 1918PneumoniaSutton Veny, EnglandBeatrice Watson2 June 1916IllnessSuez, Egypt

Nurses serving with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve NameDate of deathCircumstances of deathPlace of deathCharlotte Berrie8 January 1919PneumoniaJerusalemNarrelle Hobbes10 May 1918Liver cancerAt seaMyrtle Wilson23 December 1915PneumoniaFranceEdith Blake26 February 1918drowned after hospital ship torpedoedEnglish Channel https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P11035874

Volunteers serving with the Australian Red Cross NameDate of deathCircumstances of deathPlace of deathLouisa Riggall31 August 1918HaemorrhageFrance

Canada

53 Canadian nurses lost their lives during the war. 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. The nurses who died were:

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.

New Zealand

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

NameDate of deathCircumstances of deathPlace of deathMarion Brown23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaIsabel Clark23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaElla Cooke8 September 1917Hit by a trainAlexandria, EgyptCatherine Fox23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaMary Gorman23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaAda Gilbert Hawken28 October 1915Enteric fever (typhoid)Alexandria, EgyptNona Hildyard23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaHelena Isdell23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaMabel Jamieson23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaElise Kemp20 October 1917Killed when a German aircraft bombed the field hospital she was inFlanders, FranceLily Lind21 November 1916Tuberculosis, contracted while nursingAt sea, on board SS MahenoMary Rae23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaLorna Rattray23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaMargaret Rogers23 October 1915Drowned in the sinking of the SS MarquetteAegean SeaEsther Maude Tubman18 September 1918Cerebrospinal meningitisSalisbury Hospital, United KingdomMabel Whishaw10 November 1918InfluenzaFeatherson Camp, New Zealand

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

United Kingdom

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. 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.

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. According to the British Red Cross, "128 nursing members, 11 general service members and six Joint War Committee hospital members were killed."

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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

Three Scottish nurses drowned while serving on hospital ships during WW1. A further 33 Scottish nurses died from diseases acquired while on military service. 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.

In March 1915, four Scottish nurses died in Serbia of typhus. 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: Margaret Neill Fraser Louisa Jordan Augusta Minshull Bessie Sutherland

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.

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. 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

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.York Minster, York; Order of Service, 9th December 1950. A Service to Welcome Back the Five Windows at their Reinsertion 1950 after the Second World War. Ref: {CY/ZC}/D10/OR 1950 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”. There are 1,513 names listed on the screens.

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.

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

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

References