The Nurses General Dame Maud McCarthy Exhibition Oxford House London

Nicknamed The Nurses General, Dame Maud McCarthy is celebrated in an exhibition by Juliette Wilson at Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, Bethnal Green, London from the 6th November to the 8th December 2019.





This is an exhibition of the life and leadership of a great Australian and one of the most remarkable and highly decorated womens' leaders of the First World War. Dame Maud McCarthy was Matron-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, 1914-1919 and had charge of many thousands of nurses and VADs from many nations.

She trained at the London Hospital Whitechapel, was a Sister there and in the Second Boer War, was Matron of major military hospitals and Principal Matron at the War Office. It brings together her early life in Australia with her later achievements as a nursing leader. This includes her public side with newly researched family and archive material from her early life in Sydney, Australia, seen for the first time. The exhibition has been prepared by Juliette Wilson, an experienced film researcher, and a descendant of Maud McCarthy's, with images from Australia, New Zealand, the Library of Congress, Imperial War Museum and private collections.

Maud McCarthy helped bring up 10 brothers and sisters in Sydney, gave up her own chance to attend Sydney University, and came to England when she was 30. She undertook nursing training at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, at the time of its great reforms under Matron Eva Luckes and Sidney Holland, became a Sister, and was selected to serve, with distinction, in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902.

On her return she was rapidly promoted to senior posts as Matron of large Army hospitals and became Principal Matron at the War Office in 1910. With the outbreak of war in August 1914 she was summoned to duty in France and Flanders and shortly afterwards appointed Matron in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. Arriving in France in charge of some 500 nurses, with a tiny staff, one highly effective assistant in Sister Isabelle Barbier, and a couple of typists. By 1918 she was marshalling over 8,000 nurses and VADs, from Britain, Australia, Canada, the Dominions and America, and responsible for all the nursing operations in the field, to the German Advance and retreat of 1918, the Armistice in November 1918, and beyond, to the prisoner releases and great flu epidemic of 1919.

She was always in the field, inspecting hospitals and Casualty Clearing Stations, despatching staff and requiring improvements, and one contemporary account describes such a visit with the Matron in Chief of the Australian Army Nursing Service Evelyn Conyers, sitting in a field at night with tin hats being shelled and bombed from the air.

Her responsibilities were almost unimaginable, given the scale and ferocity of the battles of the War and the vast casualty lists after each encounter. Her contemporaries marvelled at her administrative ability, tireless, dedicated hard work, attention to detail, and support for her nurses.

She was highly decorated, and after the war went on to be Matron in Chief of the Territorial Army Nursing Service and was received by the US President in 1924.

When she left France in 1919, her nurses filled her cabin with flowers and sang "For she's a jolly good fellow" on the quayside. For many years afterwards she would be stopped and thanked by grateful soldiers and former patients in the street.

This exhibition brings the life of this great womens' leader to wider notice for new generations.

Oxford House is an arts, community and heritage centre located in a Grade II listed building. It has been recently refurbished with grants including National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Postcode for your sat nav is E2 6HG.

www.oxfordhouse.org.uk

www.facebook.com/events/709474512891791

By Tube: Central line to Bethnal Green, Overground is Bethnal Green Rail Station and by bus 8, 388, D3 (Stop: Wilmot Street), D6, 106, 254 go to Bethnal Green Tube Station.





Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.






My PTSD assistance dog, Lynne, and I have written a book about how she helps me with my military Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression. I talk about my time in the QAs and the coping strategies I now use to be in my best health.

Along the way, I have had help from various military charities, such as Help for Heroes and The Not Forgotten Association and royalties from this book will go to them and other charities like Bravehound, who paired me with my four-legged best friend.

I talk openly about the death of my son by suicide and the help I got from psychotherapy and counselling and grief charities like The Compassionate Friends.

The author, Damien Lewis, said of Lynne:

"A powerful account of what one dog means to one man on his road to recovery. Both heart-warming and life-affirming. Bravo Chris and Lynne. Bravo Bravehound."

Download.

Buy the Paperback.



This beautiful QARANC Poppy Pin Badge is available from the Royal British Legion Poppy Shop.




For those searching military records, for information on a former nurse of the QAIMNS, QARANC, Royal Red Cross, VAD and other nursing organisations or other military Corps and Regiments, please try Genes Reunited where you can search for ancestors from military records, census, birth, marriages and death certificates as well as over 673 million family trees. At GenesReunited it is free to build your family tree online and is one of the quickest and easiest ways to discover your family history and accessing army service records.

More Information.




Another genealogy website which gives you access to military records and allows you to build a family tree is Find My Past which has a free trial.









Former Royal Air Force Regiment Gunner Jason Harper witnesses a foreign jet fly over his Aberdeenshire home. It is spilling a strange yellow smoke. Minutes later, his wife, Pippa, telephones him, shouting that she needs him. They then get cut off. He sets straight out, unprepared for the nightmare that unfolds during his journey. Everyone seems to want to kill him.

Along the way, he pairs up with fellow survivor Imogen. But she enjoys killing the living dead far too much. Will she kill Jason in her blood thirst? Or will she hinder his journey through this zombie filled dystopian landscape to find his pregnant wife?

The Fence is the first in this series of post-apocalyptic military survival thrillers from the torturous mind of former British army nurse, now horror and science fiction novel writer, C.G. Buswell.

Download Now.

Buy the Paperback.


If you would like to contribute to this page, suggest changes or inclusions to this website or would like to send me a photograph then please e-mail me.










Free Book.
The death of the Brotherhood will be avenged.
RAF gunner Jason Harper and a team of Special Air Service operators are enraged after the death of their brothers by a terrorist drone strike. They fly into south-eastern Yemen on a Black-op mission to gather intelligence and avenge the death of their comrades.
Can they infiltrate the Al-Queda insurgents' camp, stay undetected, and call down their own drone missile strike and get home safely?
Will they all survive to fight another day?
Operation Wrath is a free, fast-paced adventure prequel to the non-stop action The Fence series by military veteran author C.G. Buswell.
Download for free on any device and read today.





This website is not affiliated or endorsed by The Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC) or the Ministry of Defence.