Canadian vs British VADs

[Muskoka]

I've come across mention in several sources of there being very strict rules for VADs regarding time off, socializing with officers, attending dances, etc. (at least when in France), but that others, like the Canadians, didn't have the same restrictions. Can anyone elaborate on that or tell me where I can get more specific info?

[Sue Light]

[This is such a vast subject that I've hesitated to comment, but, briefly]

This isn’t really a question relating just to VADs, rather to the entire nursing services, both trained and untrained, and had set it’s roots a long time before VADs had ever come into being – and of course, it was only the British who had such a large percentage of untrained nurses; the other allied nursing services were composed almost entirely of trained staff. During the early days of the war, the British nursing services in France adhered to the rules and regulations laid down in 1902/3 on the formation of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. They were certainly strict, but considered necessary and relevant for a service working within the British Army, and the women serving had been trained under very similar regimes in British hospitals.

At the outbreak of war, the in France were on active service in wartime conditions, and discipline was tightened even further, both to ensure the most effective and efficient working of medical units under extreme conditions, and also to reassure the parents, relatives and friends of young British women that they would be protected and cared for while abroad in the same way as they would be at home.

When the Canadian and Australian nursing services arrived in France, there were many differences seen, both in the way they ran their wards, and also in their attitudes to life overseas, time off, their social life etc., and they were seen by the senior British nurses as not only different, but in some cases very undesirable. Although the Matron-in-Chief had the powers to inspect and make suggestions to Commonwealth medical units, she was well aware that she was not in a position to intrude on the day to day affairs of the nursing staff. So the situation existed where the British units were more strictly run – women would be reprimanded or sent ‘Home’ for indiscreet behaviour, and socialising at officers’ messes was not permitted other than by official invitation.

Virtually all the sources I’ve seen that suggest the British ‘way’ was less acceptable, originate from Canada or Australia, despite the fact that those nurses were, in all but a handful of cases, working in their own hospitals, and not subject to the stricter rules and regulations of the British. I have come across very few sources which contain complaints from British nurses themselves about the conditions under which they served. There must have been some who complained, but then of course, there were those who complained about the food, and the cold, and the amount of work, and that they weren’t allowed to work with their friends or near their husbands. And in view of the numbers of women who married while serving, they must have found plenty of opportunities to meet all sorts - officers, other ranks and both French and British civilians.

In 1917, Maud McCarthy, the Matron-in-Chief with the BEF, and always strictly fair in her dealings with all her staff, looked very carefully into the question of dancing in messes, something that had always been against the rules of the service since its formation. She considered most strongly that they were ‘at war’ and should act accordingly, in a restrained and disciplined manner. She visited many units where the question was discussed, and on one occasion she summed it up with the words:

I consider dancing in peace time quite suitable and a delightful recreation but at the present moment the object for which we are out here must not be overlooked. Either the sick and wounded are going to be nursed or we are going to dance.

She was definitely not dancing, and the British were behind her – it was those who were quite free to dance who seemed to find the situation unacceptable. I guess at the end of the day it comes down to different cultures and attitudes - to work, to war, and to the adventure of going overseas on active service. As I'm British I know which side I'm on

Sue

[Muskoka]

Thanks for all that information, Sue! I'm writing an historical fiction and striving to be accurate about details. Most of what I've read about the VADs (and Nursing Sisters) has been the British ones - Vera Brittain, Lady Diana Manners, The Roses of No Man's Land, etc. - but have just come across brief references to the Canadians.

You mention... "they weren’t allowed to work with their friends or near their husbands."

If a Canadian doctor and VAD were married, would they not have been permitted to work in the same hospital?

Gabriele

[Borden Battery]

Here are some websites and documents from the CEF Study Group's list of Recommended Great War websites.

Regards

Borden Battery

Nursing Sister Helen L. Fowlds - A Canadian Nurse in World War I

This Trent University website contains the following: #1 Canadian Stationary Hospital - Information about this Hospital (contains maps and image), 53 of Helen's Letters, 16 Assorted Photographs and Images (Lemnos, Le Treport, a typical Hospital Ward, lunch by Pyramids etc.) and three of Helen's Diaries with extra photographs. [Recommendation by Nelson][CEF Study Group - Jan 2006]

http://www.trentu.ca/library/archives/ffowldswelcome.htm

The Call to Duty - Canada's Nursing Sisters

This Library and Archives Canada exhibition tells the story of six women who served as nursing sisters during the First World War. "Active Duty" presents the personal diaries, letters and photographs of these women. "Caregiving on the Front" provides a history of nursing sisters during the First World War. Specific sections of the website include: Introduction, The Canadian Army Nursing Corps: Brief History of the Military Nursing Service, The Canadian Army Nurses: Who Were They, Enlistment, The Work of Military Nurses: Living Conditions, Working Conditions, Professional Relations and Social Life and Conclusion [Recommendation by Nelson][CEF Study Group - Jan 2006]

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/nursing-sisters/index-e.html

Royal Victoria Hospital – List of Nursing Sisters in Great War

[CEF Study Group]

http://www.rootsweb.com/~qcmtl-w/RoyVicNursWWI.htm

Dear Miss Griffis – First World War Letters from Harold to Emma

This Blog site presents an exchange of letters between Dr. Harold Wigmore McGill and Nurse Emma Girffis. Dr. McGill graduated in medicine from the University of Manitoba in 1905, enlisted with the 31st Battalion CEF during the First World War, and served in the 5th Canadian Field Ambulance Corps at the front line in France. Harold’s descriptions of the horrors of war are very frank and in no way censored for her feminine eyes, perhaps because she too was in the medical profession, and he knew that descriptions of blood and death would not shock her. The "Dear Miss Griffis" blog was started in March 2006 as a unique way to share the stories in these letters. Each week the Glenbow Museum posts a letter, beginning with the very first one written by Harold to Emma, dated June 16, 1915. Subscribe to the RSS and be engaged in a true story from the pasts. [CEF Study Group - June 2006]

http://missgriffis.wordpress.com/2006/03/17/love-and-war/

Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915

- Anonymous [CEF Study Group]

http://www.archive.org/details/diarynurses...front00blacuoft

AMICUS No. 18224130

NAME(S): *Newell, M. Leslie (Margaret Leslie), 1954-

TITLE(S): Led by the spirit of humanity: Canadian military nursing, 1914-1929

PUBLISHER: Ottawa : National Library of Canada

SERIES: Canadian theses = Thèses canadiennes

NOTES: Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Ottawa, 1996.

STUDENT ABSTRACT: This study examines Canadian military nursing from the onset of the 1914 Great War to the end of the first post-War decade in 1929. Its purpose is to focus on the experience of military nursing in an attempt to discover the specifics of the profession, particularly during the interwar years, and to analyze the factors that affected military nursing during that era. The analysis of military nursing in context with the era revealed three main conclusions. First, unlike the peacetime experience, military nursing during the Great War was a professionally and culturally liberating experience that set Military Nurses apart form their civil peers. Unfortunately, during the interwar years, the re-instatement of Nursing Sisters to pre-War military positions of administration, removed them from the clinical setting, was deleterious to the profession, and did not accord them the opportunity to apply the practice element of their profession. Second, the introduction of non-commissioned men as hospital orderlies provided the major hospital military workforce that maintained the Nursing Sister's distance from the bedside and usurped them of their clinical focus and the opportunity to provide patient care. As an unfavourable offshoot to this, Military Nurses were restricted to administration. Without a practice component to their profession, Military Nurses had little in common with their civil peers who were actively engaged in practice and in activities to advance the profession. Last, the limitation imposed upon Nursing Sisters' by their appointment of relative rank precluded them from advancing within the military organization, from participating in the re-structuring of the CAMC and from influencing any policy that affected patient services or the Nursing profession. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Chailey 1914-1918

This website is a tribute to the men and women of Chailey during the First World War: those who nursed or were nursed there; those who answered their country's call; those who lie in some corner of a foreign field. This website comprises separate sections on Chailey Parish, the 'hospitals': Hickwells and Beechland House, and the protagonists: patients, nurses and Chailey's men. A narrative, The Hospital Way tells the full story of Chailey's Great War. It is a careful and detailed documentation of this specific district and their actions and lives during the war. [Paul Nixon Website][CEF Study Group - April 2006]

http://www.chailey1914-1918.net

[Sue Light]

If a Canadian doctor and VAD were married, would they not have been permitted to work in the same hospital?

Gabriele

Until the middle of 1916, British VADs who married while serving in France were not allowed to continue to serve there, and were sent back to England. Later, the decision was made to allow them to remain in France under certain circumstances, i.e. that their reports were satisfactory; that they had notified their intention to marry, and had sought permission in advance to remain in France.

As far as British units went, a nurse who became engaged to be married to another member of the same unit, was never allowed to continue to serve in that unit under any circumstances, and no married woman would ever [ever, ever] be allowed to continue to serve in the same unit as her husband. This applied to both trained and untrained staff and whose partners/husbands were doctors, or orderlies or whatever. Of course, it was the woman who was immediately moved to another unit in a different location [many miles away!]. And although that might seem harsh, it was exactly the situation that existed at that time in civil hospitals in the UK - if a nurse fell in love with a doctor [for instance] she would have to keep the liaison secret, or she would be asked to leave.

If you apply that situation to the Canadian Hospitals in France, I'm can't say with certainty if it would be treated differently. Certainly if the VAD was British, then she would have been moved, but if the doctor was Canadian, and the VAD Canadian, then it might have been tolerated - I can't be certain - mind you, there were very few untrained Canadians, if any. It also strikes me that she could well have been the victim of great jealousy by the trained Nursing Sisters and Staff Nurses - I think the heirachy would have hit back! And as far as the Canadian went, they didn't serve under the same conditions as the British, and were rotated quite frequently back to Canadian units in the UK - so a period in France for any Canadian nurse would be relatively short by British standards.

When I refer to 'British' units, I mean those under the auspices of the War Office. I suspect that conditions in hospitals run by the British Red Cross Society were more relaxed in many instances.

Sue

[Sue Light]

Just in case anyone might be interested, the book 'Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front' included in the list above, although published anonymously, was written by Kate [Evelyn] Luard, and is then continued with 'Unknown Warriors', which was published in 1930 under her own name.

Sue

[Guest moth]

[This is such a vast subject that I've hesitated to comment, but, briefly]

She was definitely not dancing, and the British were behind her – it was those who were quite free to dance who seemed to find the situation unacceptable. I guess at the end of the day it comes down to different cultures and attitudes - to work, to war, and to the adventure of going overseas on active service. As I'm British I know which side I'm on

Sue

I find these remarks a bit puzzling.

Surely we were all then, and presumably now, on the same 'side.' I'm certainly not going to choose between my father (Canadian) and my mother (English) as to who worked the hardest in their lives.

I advocate caution when it comes to making generalizations about cultural attitudes or anything else from remarks made during the period. There was bound to be a certain amount of culture clash and related rivalry. In consequence of this rivalry, certain remarks were made that were likely designed to imply that the other culture was somehow defective. In this case it came down to one side interpreting the other's formality as oppressive and that side in its turn interpreting the other's informality as cavalier and undedicated. In point of fact the opposite of informal is not 'oppressed' but formal; the opposite of 'formal' is not 'cavalier and undedicated' but, informal.

The remark about dancing and hard work being incompatible reflects, I suspect, the period. We are, after all, discussing a period in history in which workers on both sides of the ocean worked incredibly long hours even in peacetime. I'm told that in the Edwardian era the employers of female domestic staff, for example, discouraged them from having suitors. Similarly, women in factory occupations were tightly controlled on both sides of the Atlantic. (That so many lives were lost as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist company fire in New York came about as a result of the employer having locked the doors!) This is not to say that nurses during the war worked in sweatshop conditions, it is only meant to point out that tough working conditions would not have been unexpected by people on either side of the Atlantic.

As to the meeting of my mother (a nurse in WWII) and my father (a doctor), it was at a dance. This was a rare recreational opportunity for both of them, but I trust nobody will censor their records and/or dedication for this being the case.

[Sue Light]

I advocate caution when it comes to making generalizations about cultural attitudes or anything else from remarks made during the period.

Thank you for the warning, although I'm not sure which bits you regard as 'generalizations.' I try very hard to deal only in facts from primary sources, and to pass over the inaccurate and misleading information that makes up a great deal of what's written about British nurses in the Great War.

And my 'taking sides' was a comment in response to the title of the thread.

Sue

[Cam_s]

Maybe just because I am Canadian, I find the topic of not being allowed to dance during a war to a little odd.

I know alot of this info was not known at the time, but simple activities such as dancing or PT can help to calm someone, blow off steam and prevent them from suffering from PTSD. It gets thier minds off of the day and in the case of nurses, treating horrible injuries.

If it comes down to the idea of the people in the rear having a good time and the soldiers at the front having a tough time, I think this is going a little far. I know from my own expierence, when a support trade in the army tries to look hard, or like they are going through the 'Sh*t', we just tend to laugh at them becasue we know they are pretending. I think the same applies here. No matter how much the rear areas in the Great War tried to look like they were in a serious state, the front line troops would have seen right through it.

Cam

[Muskoka]

Thank you all for your most helpful replies - which do influence the plotline! And Borden Battery, thanks for all those links - I had some but not all.

Just to add to the comments about dancing, here's a quote from War Girls by Janet Lee. The book is about the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), who were stationed, among other places, in Calais and St. Omer.

"Everyone, it appears, was crazy to dance and relieve the misery and tensions of the war..... The community for the FANY in Unit 8 [st. Omer] included a number of VAD attached to the convoy.... When the VAD were forbidden to dance at the local YMCA hut, the FANY got around it by allowing the VAD to dance in their (the FANY) mess right next door.

And when news came down that Miss Crowdy, 'Queen of the VAD', wrote to Thompson [the FANY CO] proposing the VAD be moved from the convoy, the reaction was tears and a series of petitions initiated by the VAD that they be allowed to stay."

The FANY were rather renowned for their " 'social outreach' or entertaining ... both teas and other get-togethers...." - but with a strict moral code - no fraternizing with common soldiers, and having a chaperone along when going out with an officer, the chaperone only being required after dark!

Gabriele

[Muskoka]

Gabriele

there were very few untrained Canadians, if any.

Sue

Sue, I came across a reference to the first contingent of Canadian VADs to be posted to Britain in Sept. 1916. Altogether 500 Canadian VADs were posted overseas, and it seems that most worked in British Military Hospitals under the direction of British Nursing Sisters. This source says the CAMC resisted the use of VAD overseas fearing that casually trained volunteers - "especially women" - would undermine the professional standards of nurses and doctors, and military discipline.

But apparently there were Canadian VAD women ambulance drivers with the British Red Cross in France. Trying to find out more about that.

One of the VADs ended up in France, but at a private convalescent hospital for Canadian officers - the converted Rothschild mansion in Deauville. (Tough, that!) It was very luxurious but she felt like a glorified housemaid, when she had really wanted to get closer to the action.

Gabriele

[Sue Light]

This source says the CAMC resisted the use of VAD overseas fearing that casually trained volunteers - "especially women" - would undermine the professional standards of nurses and doctors, and military discipline.

Gabriele

I've certainly never seen any reference to a Canadian VAD in France - there were occasions early on when establishments were low, and VADs were temporarily employed in Canadian units, but these were given as 'British' and the daily transfers in and out of Canadians only record the names of trained staff. The South African Military Nursing Service had untrained nurses in France, and these are always given separately in the returns, and Canadians and Australians working for the British nursing services are always recorded as [for instance] Miss Smith, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve [Canadian]. So if there had been any VADs, I would expect to find at least some minor reference to their nationality. I shall keep a better lookout for them now.

But if there were that many of them, then presumably they have service records which would give details of where they worked - it would be interesting to find a few. I find it a bit unusual that they were sent over, but not considered useful enough to be used in Canadian units, when VADs were proving themselves so vital to the British - presumably it was done at the request of the British Government when the supply of nurses was running low.

Sue

[Muskoka]

Sue,

I haven't done any primary research on Canadian VADs as yet. The facts I quoted are from a book entitled Framing Our Past: Canadian Women’s History in the Twentieth Century. by Sharon Anne Cook, et. al, McGill University Press, 2001. One young woman is profiled, and info about VADs therefore given in context to her story. She happened to have a family connection to Sir Henry Pellatt, who was head of the St. John Ambulance in Canada, and managed to use her pull to get posted overseas with the first VAD contingent. I only made note of her name as Violet. (I'm only writing fiction after all.)

Gabriele

[Canadawwi]

This is discussed in "The War story of the Canadian Army Medical Corps" (1915). The entire book may be read online at:

The War Story of the C.A.M.C. - J. G. Adami, 1915

He explains the evolution of pre-war nursing in Canada.

One of his main points is that women from wealthier Canadian families who had been unable to find husbands would often consider nursing as an honourable career. They were supposed to step aside to give their "younger sisters" a chance at matrimony. Here's what he wrote:

One other and outstanding feature of the C.A.M.C. remains to be noted, namely, the relationship and status of the nursing service. As a young country developing an army with no old traditions to hamper it, the logical course could be taken, rather than that which can be excused only on historical grounds. The British Army Nursing Service, it will be recalled, began by Sidney Herbert calling in the services of Florence Nightingale to mitigate the terrible condition of affairs in the hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War. One has but to read Sidney Herbert's "Life" to realize that, great and admirable as was this devoted woman, she was the despair of the official, making it impossible to incorporate her and the organization she controlled as an integral part of the Medical Service. Thus, from the Crimea onwards, the Nursing Service in the British Army, and other armies which have copied it, has been an auxiliary rather than an integral branch. Nevertheless, the nursing sisters have for long been an absolutely essential section of the Army Medical personnel; their work is performed under the control and direction of the medical officers. There is not one adequate reason why, as a body, they should belong to a separate organization – or to one of several separate organizations.

Thus it was that in 1906 the Minister deliberately created the Army Nursing Sisters as an integral portion of the Army Medical Service, under the command of a matron who, in her turn, is responsible to the D.G.M.S. Doing this, regulations were laid down as to the qualifications and course of training, and the fully qualified sister was given the relative rank of lieutenant. As distinguished from the nursing sisters of all other armies in the field, the Canadian Nursing Sisters have thus military status, and are under direct military control. This explains their uniform and their "stars," which apparently have given offence to the illogical.

Now, although this is a delicate matter to place upon paper, yet, with reference to this grant of relative rank, it is essential to call attention to certain facts. While the best are peers of the best, and there are English, Scotch and Irish nursing sisters not one whit behind their Canadian sisters in any respect, socially, as a body, the nursing profession in Canada has, in the first place, a higher status than it possesses in the old country. It attracts, in general, the daughters of professional men, and those from comfortable households. In a family of daughters, for example, it is quite the custom in Canada for the elder girls, when they have been "out" for three or four seasons, to realize that they have had their opportunity, and rather than be in the way of their younger sisters, to elect to become nurses. It is a rule that Canadian Nursing Sisters have had, not a common, but a High School education, or what corresponds thereto. And as nurses their training has been very thorough, with fuller courses of lectures on the basal subjects than is usual in Great Britain. As a result, a remarkably large proportion of the matrons of the great hospitals in the United States are of Canadian birth and training. Add to this that the Canadian nurse embarked on her profession is paid on a scale which in Great Britain would be thought extravagant. But then she is thoroughly competent, and this high recompense is found eventually economical. But just as at Oxford and Cambridge we may encounter those who do not attain to the quality which we associate with graduates of the older universities, so, among the Canadian Nursing Sisters, an occasional individual may be open to criticism; yet certainly as a body, for capacity, alertness and bearing, the Canadian sisters deserve, and more than deserve, the rank which has been given to them. And in this war they have abundantly "made good."

It should be emphasized that this step was taken on military grounds, and by the Ministry and Militia Council, not as the result of any agitation by the nursing sisters themselves – in fact, some years before the suffragettes became militant. The experience of the Canadian Army Medical Service has abundantly justified the innovation and proved it to be right and wise.

The first Matron to be appointed was Miss G. Pope, R.R.C., 13 who had been through the South African campaign as Matron. She was succeeded at the beginning of the war by Matron Macdonald,14 who, with the establishment of the Headquarters Staff in London, took charge there, under the D.M.S., of all matters connected with the nursing personnel.

The points he made stuck in my mind, because in fact my great-grandmother became a nurse in Toronto in her late twenties in the when it appeared that she might never find a husband. She did not actually need the money. No other female in her family actually worked outside the home at that time. During the first World War her nieces went out to work on munitions, and the newspapers pointed out their names in an article indicating that "Society girls" looking for entertainment and the appearance of charity were taking away jobs from women who really needed them.

I also noted some observations on Canadian nurses in Lyn Macdonald's Roses of No Man's Land. If you have not already read this book, it will give you an excellent overview.

[Muskoka]

Thank you, Canadawwi. I've come across this before and have read The Roses of No Man's Land. I'm looking for more info about the (Canadian) VAD, the so-called "untrained" nurses. I've just come across another book of letters from a VAD, but she was from Newfoundland, which wasn't part of Canada at that time and therefore wouldn't have been under the auspices of the Canadian Red Cross.

I expect that experiences and working conditions were very similar for all VADs, but was just wondering what the differences might be, having discovered that there were differences, as you pointed out, in the nursing services.

[Sue Light]

I expect that experiences and working conditions were very similar for all VADs, but was just wondering what the differences might be, having discovered that there were differences, as you pointed out, in the nursing services.

The extract above, taken from 'The War Story of the C.A.M.C.' may be an accurate reflection of the situation in Canada, but unfortunately is not a true reflection of the training, social class, status and postion in the Army of the British nurse. The words 'making it us as he went along' spring to mind, and unfortunately that account now forms an integral part of the 'Call to Duty' pages on the website of the Library and Archives of Canada, which simply spreads the inaccuracy and mis-information. I find it distressing that a 1915 account can be used in that way without further research or investigation, and it does a great injustice to British nurses, both civil and military.

Sue

[royalredcross]

It is important not to confuse the FANY with nurses. Other than a very few of them right at the start of the war, they were almost entirely drivers. And, more importantly, they were recruited mostly from a fairly high social stratum and many did not work before the war. They were also outwith the control of the British Nursing Service and mostly worked, apart from a couple of convoys, with the French and Belgians.

Basically, they were a rule unto themselves.

NGG

[Sue Light]

I've just come across this little snippet in WO222/2134 [The National Archives] concerning Canadian VADs in France - not much, but a bit of extra information:

In April 1917, the D.G.M.S. sanctioned the employment of 15 V.A.D. Members in Canadian Hospitals, for work in the recreation huts and as secretaries. These ladies were members of the Canadian Red Cross Society and in each of the larger units there were 2 employed.

In February, 1918, a detachment of Canadian V.A.D. Members of the S.J.A.B. were sent over from Canada for duty in Imperial units. They were accompanied by Mrs. Kuhring who afterwards came to my Headquarters, but I unfortunately missed seeing her.

Sue