BRITISH MILITARY NURSES FROM 1875
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Army Nursing Service
Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and Reserve
Territorial Force Nursing Service
Queen Alexandra's Military Nursing Service for India
Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service
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The British Army has always demanded the highest standards from its nurses. Shaking off any past reputation of nurses as being drunken, immoral and untrustworthy, it insisted that members of the Army Nursing Service and its successors were highly trained and educated women of impeccable social standing. As the Services expanded rapidly during the Great War, standards remained high, maintaining an elitism within the nursing profession.
The page on British Military Nurses gives a brief overview of each of the nursing services, and gives some idea of the chances of records surviving for women who served between 1875 and 1925. For women who entered the service after the end of the Great War, surviving records are still held by the Ministry of Defence, and are not likely to be released into the public domain until at least 2015. Details of how to apply for records of women who served during the Second World War will be found on the research page.
Family history has increased in popularity, but these intelligent, professional and sometimes intimidating women have remained in the background. Many did not marry and therefore have no direct descendants, and of the thousands who served during the Great War, most were children or very young women at the time of the 1901 census, and their later lives are still undiscovered. It may not be until after the release of the 1911 census that more are recognized.
Please contact me if you need help or advice with researching a member of one of the military nursing services. The research page will give you some ideas about what you can do yourself, and details of some sources that may be new to you.
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GREAT WAR ACCOUNTS
Over recent years I've transcribed many unpublished nursing documents which are held at The National Archives, and some of these are now included here. They will include both official documents and personal accounts, and I think they will prove particularly beneficial to the serious student and those trying to make more sense of their relatives' time with the nursing services. The official war diary of the Matron-in-Chief is a document of extraordinary length, and will be added here month by month - it will take some time to add, and even longer to read. Use the menu on the left or one of the links below, to start reading...
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THE SECOND WORLD WAR
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THIS INTREPID BAND
