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ARRC GV, on lady’s bow riband;
QSA (0) (Nursing Sister F. Puddicombe.);
KSA (0) (Nursing Sister F. Puddicombe.);
1914 Star (Miss F. C. Puddicombe. Q.A.I.M.N.S.R.);
British War and Victory Medals (Sister F. C. Puddicombe.)

ARRC London Gazette 1 January 1918.

Florence Catherine Puddicombe was born in St. Aubin, Jersey, on 10 December 1867, and qualified as a nurse at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in 1894. A founding member of the League of Nurses at St. Bartholomew’s, she joined Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Reserve on 28 March 1900 and served as a Nursing Sister during the Boer War. The roll for the QSA Medal later notes her with the Army Nursing Service Reserve at No. 5 General Hospital in Cape Town. A former Base Hospital, this General Hospital offered 940 beds to sick and wounded servicemen making it one of the largest in operation.

Returned home to England, Puddicombe is noted in 1911 as a sick nurse at Felsted School. She later joined the QAIMNSR on 1 January 1914, her MIC noting service in France from 12 August 1914 at No. 2 General Hospital. Transferred to No. 14 Stationary Hospital, she received the ARRC. from the hand of the King at an investiture held at Buckingham Palace on 11 December 1919. Released from service at around this time, the recipient’s Nursing Service Record notes her forwarding address as ‘St. Stephen’s Vicarage, Launceston, Cornwall.’

Sold with a QAIMNSR cape badge, hallmarked Birmingham 1915.

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QSA (0) Nursing Sister H. L. Neale.);
KSA (0) (Nursing Sister H. L. Neale.)

Helen L. Neale was appointed to the Army Nursing Service as Nursing Sister at Netley on 5 October 1894. She served in Cape Colony from October 1899 to September 1901, and the Transvaal from October 1901 to May 1902, the medal rolls confirming postings to the Base Hospital at Cape Town and No. 1 General Hospital at Wynberg. She then served a further period at the General Hospital in Pretoria. Appointed Sister in 1903 upon the reorganisation of the service, Neale returned from South Africa and spent two years at Netley from 1904 to 1906, resigning in May 1906.

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QSA (0) (Nursing Sister A. B. Noble.) officially re-impressed naming as typically encountered with QSAs to nurses;
KSA (0) (Nursing Sister A. B. Noble.);
Coronation 1911, unnamed as issued, on lady’s bow riband

Alice Beatrice Noble took her nursing studies at the Royal Hospital in Sheffield and enrolled in Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve as No. 8 on 1 March 1897. Sent to South Africa, she served at No. 5 General Hospital in January 1900, and later nursed at No. 4 General Hospital at Mooi River and No. 12 Stationary Hospital at Ladysmith. She is believed to be one of five nurses of the ANSR selected to receive the 1911 Coronation Medal.

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QSA (0) (Nursing Sister V. D. Chawner.);
KSA (0) (Nursing Sister V. D. Chawner.);
1914-15 Star (V. D. Stewart, B.R.C. & St. J.J.);
British War and Victory Medals (V. D. Stewart)

Violet Dorothy Chawner was born in Newton Valence, Hampshire, in 1873, the daughter of a former Captain of the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment). She trained as a nurse at Trinity Hospital in New York, before serving at the Presbyterian Hospital from 1892 to 1896, and at Guy’s Hospital in London from 1898 to 1899. Chawner enrolled in Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve (as No. 150) on 8 December 1899, arriving in Cape Town on 19 January 1900. She initially served at No. 2 General Hospital in Pretoria, but is recorded in December 1900 at Driefontein. Sent to Durban, she departed South Africa for passage home to England on 4 May 1901.

In late 1902, Chawner married Captain Robert Joseph Tucker Stewart at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, London. Originally Commissioned in the Northumberland Fusiliers, it appears that the couple met in South Africa whilst Stewart was serving as Transport Officer on the Staff of the Indian Army. Called to service at the commencement of the Great War, Nurse Stewart initially witnessed home service with the British Red Cross at Lady Ramsden’s Hospital, before crossing the Channel to France in September 1915. Posted to Étaples, she soon contracted an illness and was forced to return home.

Resigned from the British Red Cross, Stewart channelled all her energies into getting better. This proved fruitful and she served a further two terms in France and Flanders from June 1916 to October 1916, and February 1917 to June 1917. Acting as a Nurse under the British Committee of the French Red Cross, she thus attended to vast numbers of men wounded on the Somme and on the battlefield of Ypres. Stewart survived the war and travelled from London to Karachi on 4 December 1918. She is later recorded in 1931 travelling to Tangier with her daughter Iris, their address given as 147, Cromwell Road, London, which at that time was the Hotel Madrid.

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QSA (0) (Nursing Sister M. E. Tate);
KSA (0) (Nursing Sister M. E. Tate.)

Maud Ellen Tate was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, around 1872, and took her nursing studies at the Metropolitan Hospital in London. Appointed to Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve, she served during the Boer War at No. 7 General Hospital in Pretoria and No. 14 General Hospital in Newcastle, and was at some time attached to Langman’s Hospital. The latter was a private field hospital endowed by the philanthropist John Langman, which garnered fame for its appointment of retired opthalmologist Arthur Conan Doyle and for its efforts in combating the typhoid fever epidemic which raged from April to June 1900 in Bloemfontein.

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QSA (0) (Ward Maid F. Garland. I.Y. H.P. Staff.).

Together with the recipient’s Royal British Nurses Association Diploma Medal, with Steadfast & True top riband bar, silver, hallmarked Birmingham 1913, reverse engraved ‘F. A. Garland.’,

Frances Garland was born in Blackwall, Poplar, in 1876, and served at the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital in South Africa as Ward Maid - a role devoted to women who looked after the nurses and were employed on housekeeping type duties. Returned home to London, Garland subsequently took her nursing studies at the Whitechapel Infirmary from December 1903 to March 1907 and took employment in private nursing.