photo needed for art research

[Augustine]

I tried to find the type of photo I was looking for using the search feature, but didn't find what I was after among the results. Google image search turned up a bunch of unrelated material that proved tedious and fruitless to sift through. I'm hoping someone here can provide me with a photo or helpful link.

I am looking for photos of nurses with the British army, preferably matrons or more "senior" (in terms of rank/experience) nurses. I've found some photos of Navy nurses so far, and some nurses from countries other than England, but I'm really just looking for British Army.

I need to get an idea of what the uniform and overall dress and grooming would look like. The reason I ask is because I'm doing research for some drawings I plan to do.

On a related question, can someone tell me what sort of headwear you would see on a matron/senior nurse? Did they only wear veils (similar to a nun), or did they sometimes wear the more modern nurses' caps?

Help is very much appreciated! And I apologize for troubling you with yet another of my silly research questions.

[gcwilson]

There are a number of photographs of British nurses at the AWM site:

http://www.awm.gov.au/

Go to Collections Databases in the left hand panel

Hit Collections Search

Type in: nurse

For conflict select First World War

There are a number of images here that are specifically British.

Hope there’s something useful here

Graham W.

[Augustine]

Thank you Graham--that site was quite helpful. I appreciate it.

I'm still wondering about the head coverings...most of the nurses seem to wear the nun's habit-looking ones, but I saw a drawing of Edith Cavell where she was wearing the more modern little white nurse's cap. Was one preferred over the other?

[Sue Light]

I'm still wondering about the head coverings...most of the nurses seem to wear the nun's habit-looking ones, but I saw a drawing of Edith Cavell where she was wearing the more modern little white nurse's cap. Was one preferred over the other?

Edith Cavell wasn't a military nurse, she was a civilian, so it was more usual for her to wear the 'Sister Dora' type of hat. All trained British military nurses wore the veil type, although never the rather nun-like style of the French, and from the early summer of 1915 the untrained nurses wore the handkerchief style of cap, tied at the nape of the neck. I've got quite a few images of British nurses, both portrait poses, and others of groups etc., - if you email me I could sort out some that might be useful.

Sue

[Owen D]

Have a search for "nurse" on the IWM photo archive.

http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/qryPhotoImg.asp