Nursing through Shot and Shell: Medical Women at the Front

When War was declared in August 1914, many British women demanded the right to serve their nation. If Kitchener’s sister had only called for a million women, she would have found recruitment as easy as her brother did.

Many women assumed that Red Cross First Aid and other Proficiency certificates would provide an entrée into the charmed circle of military nursing. Others believed the War Office would welcome their professional skills as doctors and surgeons and send them on Active Service overseas. Still others imagined that their birth, breeding and total confidence in their own usefulness to the Allied cause would be as self-evident to the military authorities as to themselves. However, in 1914 the War Office believed that, apart from the small exclusive corps of professional military nurses, in wartime women should quite simply ‘go home and sit still’.

Using private and public sources of record, Dr Viv Newman brings to life some of the remarkable women who stood up to the War Office and demonstrated skill, compassion and ingenuity. Through their service on many Fronts they pushed back the boundaries of acceptable female behaviour.