Tracing WW1 Nurses

[Craig M]

How can I find out about Nurses in the the First War?

Passenger lists seem to be UK arrivals only. Are UK departures or Indian arrivals available for outgoing passengers?

I have a passenger list of people coming to England from Bombay, India dated 22nd June 1919.

There is an entry for a number of female passengers listed as 'Civilian Passengers under the Military' Can anyone confirm what that means?

I'm looking at the entry for Mrs. Hoare aged 27.

At the top of the page it says that First Class passengers need not list their occupation. One of the women travels second class and therefore her occupation is listed; she's a Nurse.

The obvious assumption is that they're all a group of Nurses who had worked for the Military, are traveling together, and one of them couldn't get a 1st Class cabin.

I'm looking for information on my Grandfathers first wife, Caroline Emma Hoare (nee Douglas), DOB 13th June 1892 which would tally.

He was a Private, 2nd Batt. Somerset Light Infantry in India during the First World War and a passenger list shows he came back to the UK with the Army on 10/4/1920. Presumably he went straight back out to India as a civilian.
We have no information about her whereabouts or occupation during the war. Nor do we know when she went to India. Any suggestions how to trace that would be welcome.
She died in Bombay 13th Feb 1921 and he is the informant on the death record. He came home 28/4/1922. but we have no idea when she went out.

Thanks for the help.

[scrimnet]

The best place for ANY WW1 Nursey stuff is here

http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/

[harvo]

hi, If the site listed doesn't produce the information you require try
         QARANCS  site Queen Alexanders Royal Army Nursing Corps
      they have records of Military Hospitals from all over the world past and present,and their own museum
         Good Hunting

[scrimnet]

hi, If the site listed doesn't produce the information you require try
         QARANCS  site Queen Alexanders Royal Army Nursing Corps
      they have records of Military Hospitals from all over the world past and present,and their own museum
         Good Hunting

Actually the museum is a tripartite one with the QA's RAMC and RADC at Keogh Bks Ash, nr Aldershot. Pete Starling is the curator

What Sue (scarletfinders on here), doesnt know about or cant find out about QAIMNS/VADS and WW1 Nursing isnt worth knowing 

[Scarletwoman]

I doubt very much indeed whether these women are a group of nurses, and even in the case of Mrs Moran, doubt that she has any connection with the military nursing services.  My assumption would be that these are a group of women married to British soldiers, returning to England, either for a period of home leave, or as a permanent arrangement at the end of the war.  Almost all military nurses were unmarried, and although there was the occasional married woman in wartime, I would say it's impossible to have such a group of married nurses - the fact that one has two children totally excludes her from that category.  It looks as though the 'nurse' is probably either a children's nurse, or nurse to an invalid women - she would travel second class as a matter of course as a 'servant.'

I see that there was a Mrs. C. E. Hoare, aged twenty-two, who travelled out from London to Bombay on board the Arabia in October 1914.  So if this is the same woman returning in 1919, five years is an appropriate period for a posting to India for her husband's regiment.

And just a comment - the qaranc.co.uk site (if that's the one referred to earlier) is an independent, semi-commercial site - it has no official connection with the British army or to the Army Medical Services Museum at Keogh Barracks.

Sue

[Craig M]

Thanks very much Sue

Now I’m really confused.

We don’t know when Alfred joined the Army. The only thing I have found of his Army records is the medal card. I understand Officers being able to take a wife but would a Private be permitted to take his?

I’m using ancestry.co.uk So far I have found how to access Passenger lists for UK arrivals but not departures. Are you using a different lookup website?

Could you post a link to the source so I can try looking up things myself please?

We have a marriage record for Alfred and Caroline dated Christmas day 1915 in London. I can’t see a Private getting leave to come all the way from India to London. This is just a guess but we suspect he joined up 1915 to ‘do his bit’. He probably got Christmas or embarkation leave after training and got married. He and Caroline were from the same neighbourhood, went to the same church and were the same age. They probably knew each other most of their lives.

So on the date you give she was still single and therefore Miss Douglas, not Mrs Hoare unless there’s something funny going on.

I wouldn’t put something funny past my Grandfather; he has a track record…

We have a Passenger list for him coming home with the Army dated 10/4/1920. No sign of Caroline aboard the ship.

Somehow he and Caroline turn up in India. We don’t know if he went back out with her after he came home with the Army, if they travelled separately, or if she was still out there and he went back to her.

All we know is that she died in Bombay on 13th February 1921 and he must have been there because he was the informant on the death certificate. He came home 28th April 1922 and is giving his occupation as letter press man. He had served a printing apprenticeship before the Army.

Mysteriously we have a photograph, on the back is written Kahndala, Christmas 1922. Kahndala is a hill station near Bombay.

Now if he arrived back in London in April 1922 how has he taken a photo in India at Christmas?

He then married the daughter of his cousin in 1925. As a close family member she must have known he had been married before. Yet neither of them ever mentioned Granddads first marriage. The first anyone knew was when we pulled the marriage certificate and found he was a widower when they married.

Here’s a photo you might like to have, if you would like a higher resolution version PM me an address to send it to. On the back it says.
Station Hospital Trimulgherry.

You probably know this, but Trimulgherry is a suburb of Secunderabad, north of Hyderabad. Secunderabad was a British Cantonment. We assume this photo to have been taken in between 1915-1920.
There must have once been many photographs of India in his collection, but few survive. We wondered what the significance was of the few he kept.

Why the hospital?

We wondered if it was a covert memory of Caroline, kept after he concealed her existence.

Our hypothesis was that after he joined the Army and was posted to India, she had become a nurse so as to get posted near him. If she had been posted to that hospital it would explain why he kept that photo.

Your comments make that very unlikely. However, I wouldn’t put it past Granddad to have lied about marital status to get her there.

Do you have any records for that hospital? Would it be possible to check for either Caroline Emma Douglas or Hoare probably with a date of birth 13th June 1892 please?

[Scarletwoman]

Craig

Apologies Craig, but I did the look-up when I was at The National Archives, so don't have a link - it will be on FindMyPast, just on a normal migration search under the name Hoare.
I've read all the information through, but really find it hard to make any suggestions.  However, I do think that there are a lot of assumptions being made that might be leading in the wrong direction.  If the marriage was in 1915, it seems likely that both entries relating to Mrs Hoare coming and going relate to a completely different person, and Caroline was in the UK throughout the war, eventually going out to India with Alfred in 1920-ish.  I agree that unless he was a long-standing regular soldier and married before the war it is not likely that Caroline would have gone to India in wartime, even after her marriage.

Could the photo of Khandala have been sent back to England by a friend in India, rather than Alfred having taken it himself?  And the photo of Station Hospital Trimulgherry - there could be other explanations about that - could he or Caroline have been patients there while in India?  Or again, could it have been sent back to him after his return to the UK by a friend still out there?  But from the nursing angle, I don't see anything in the information to suggest a connection with Caroline.

Sue

[sanab]

Hello Craig,

Is there any way I can get access to your photograph of Secunderabad Military Hospital?

I have been searching for a high resolution scan for an image of the hospital for a long time. My great-grandmother worked as a nurse there in 1919. Do you own the copyright for the image? I would like to use it in a documentary film I am making.

Thanks,

Sana

[Craig M]

Sanab

PM me an email address so I can send photos.

You're in luck. I'm going through the photo's and have found a couple of the hospital, several others in the area and a few that are in India, but we don't know where.

I've just scanned them at 1200DPI JPEG. That's as high as I can go. After that I'll have to take them to a professional. Mum doesn't want to let them out of her possession.

They belong to my Mother, but she has given permission for them for you to use them.

She would appreciate it if you could send a copy of your documentary when it's finished so she can see where her Father served.

Whilst researching would you please keep a look out in the records for anything relating to my Grandfather or the Somerset Light Infantry.