A Red Cross nurse, circa 1916-1919 |
She was drawn by a patient recovering in the St John’s Hospital in Cheltenham and the picture will date from 1916 through to 1919.
I can’t be exactly sure of the date, the artist or of course the nurse, but it remains a powerful link to the past.
It’s one of 29 pictures, poems and comments left in the autograph book which had been started by Ms Rachel Wattis in the August of 1916.
So this could be her or perhaps Miss Margaret Adelaide Brown who is also mentioned in one of the comments.
But beyond that I am stumped. Neither woman has as yet shown up in the historical records.
Some of the collection on display at the Remembrance Lodge |
Not much to go on and the chances are our young woman is neither of these.
But this will not be the end of the search.
I know that the Red Cross produced a report on St John’s which lists some of the personnel, and there may be something more in the archive at the Cheltenham Local & Family History Library* who have already been most helpful.
Of course it is easy to become discouraged but I think it is well worth the effort to keep looking, if only to give a greater context to the 29 men and two nurses who appear in that autograph book.
Now there must have been hundreds of these books but as far as I know there are few now available to look at.
This one comes from the collection of David Harrop and may well form part of his forthcoming exhibition at the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery which holds a fascinating array of memorabilia from both world wars.
Ms Rachel Wattis |
Still I have high hopes that some of the men in that Red Cross book will come out of the shadows and perhaps even my nurse.
We shall see.
Picture; unknown nurse from Blighty, the autograph book of St John’s Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham, courtesy of David Harrop
Entry from Blighty, © David Harrop
* Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/109250/Cheltenham-Local-and-Family-History-Centre
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