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Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS)

 

The acorn that grew into the oak of the army nursing service was the arrival of 40 nurses in the Crimea in 1854, one of whom was Florence Nightingale. Wounded soldiers from the battlefields were in some cases brought back to Chatham, which was the first hospital to have nursing sisters in the wards. By 1861, six nurses and a superintendent had been employed at Woolwich and Netley by the Army Hospital Corps, and in 1881 the Army Nursing Service was formed. Three years later the regulations for a Female Nursing Service were laid down, to be followed in hospitals at Aldershot, Gosport, Portsmouth, Devonport, Dover, Shorncliffe, Canterbury, the Curragh in Ireland, Malta and Gibraltar. Army orders issued in 1889 required that sisters be employed in all military hospitals with more than 100 beds.

The sisters were to be responsible for administration and supervision on the wards and for training the male nursing assistants. Their uniform was the soon familiar grey dress and scarlet shoulder cape (exchanged for khaki during the Second World War), which led to them being known as the ‘Ladies in Grey’. In 1897 the Reserve Service was formed and during the South African War of 1899–1902 some 1,400 nurses were sent to the Cape – they were awarded the Queen’s and King’s South African Medal and their names will appear on the Medal Rolls at The National Archives. In 1902, under the patronage of the Queen, the name of the service was changed to Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.

For a woman who liked to travel and to enjoy a certain status (and earn more than her civilian counterparts), becoming a QAIMNS nurse in peacetime was extremely attractive. In 1911, before being accepted by the War Office, a nurse had to have served at least three years in a civil hospital with more than 100 beds. Once in the service, she could expect to be posted abroad – Egypt, Gibraltar, Malta, South Africa or Hong Kong – for a period of three to five years. Applicants for the post of staff nurse (between 25 and 35 years of age) were assessed at the end of six months and, if satisfactory, put on the establishment. A staff nurse in 1911 started at £40 per year, rising to £45, with generous allowances for board, fuel, uniform etc. A sister could expect a salary of between £50 and £65; a matron £75 to £150; a principal matron £175 to £205, and the matron-in-chief £305 to £350. They received a pension on retirement at age 55, or after ten years’ service if they were rendered unfit for duty through illness or injury.

With the outbreak of war in 1914 the service was merged with the Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS). There had been only about 300 nurses in the QAIMNS pre-1914 but over 2,000 were quickly brought in from the Reserve. Just under 200 QAIMNS nurses died during the First World War, 36 of them drowned or killed in action.

Then it was back to peacetime nursing after demobilisation. In 1926 the service was amalgamated with Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service for India, and the following year absorbed Queen Alexandra’s Military Families Nursing Service, so that now nurses might find themselves caring for not only soldiers, but also their families. There were military hospitals all over the country, including Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital at Millbank, London; the Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot; the Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich; the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley; and Tidworth Military Hospital, as well as smaller family hospitals. Abroad, nurses might be sent to serve in China, India, Burma, Egypt, the Sudan, Malta or Gibraltar.

Since the beginning of the service, the sisters had had the status of officers, and in 1926 they were granted relative rank in King’s Regulations. In 1940 they were authorised to wear relative rank badges, and the following year were recognised as commissioned officers of the armed forces, with equivalent rank as Army officers – so that they should salute and be saluted within mixed units.

With the outbreak of war again in 1939, the QAIMNS was merged with the Territorial Army Nursing Service ‘for the duration’, and served in all theatres of war over the next five years, culminating with the British Army of Liberation (later the Army of the Rhine). In 1949 the name of the service was changed, bearing in mind the demise of the British Empire, to Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC).

Equivalent ranks (Army ranks in brackets): Matron-in-Chief (Brigadier), Chief Principal Matron (Colonel), Principal Matron (Lt-Colonel), Matron (Major), Sister with 10 years’ service (Captain), Sister (1st Lieutenant).

The official website (www.qaranc.co.uk) has pages on history and information on nurses and hospitals. The National Archives’ research guide ‘British Army: Nursing and Nursing Services’ also has a full history and information about the service records it holds. For nurses of the Second World War it will be necessary to contact the Ministry of Defence, Army Personnel Centre, Historical Disclosures, Mailpoint 400, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street, Glasgow G2 8EX (telephone: 0141 224 3030; email: disc4.civsec@apc.army.mod.uk); records are only released to next of kin and there is a fee. See Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, Juliet Piggott (Pen and Sword, 1975), or Sisters in Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story, Nicola Tyrer (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2008). The QARANC museum is at the Army Medical Services Museum, Keogh Barracks, Ash Vale, Aldershot GU12 5RQ (www.ams-museum.org.uk).

 

Nurses on their way from Boulogne to pick up wounded soldiers being brought back from the trenches, during the First World War.

Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC)

 

see Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS).

Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service (QARNNS)

 

The sick men of the Royal Navy were nursed by, mainly, untrained sailors’ widows or male naval pensioners until the late 19th century, when the innovations begun in the Army nursing service provoked a similar reaction in the Senior Service. During the Crimean War, in 1854, six nurses had been taken out to the naval hospital at Therapia, near Constantinople, by Mrs Eliza Mackenzie, and much as Florence Nightingale’s experiences influenced Army nursing, so Mrs Mackenzie’s sisters were the pioneers of the Naval Nursing Service. In 1884 six sisters and four head nurses, under a matron, were appointed for the first time at the Royal Hospital for Sick and Hurt Seamen at Haslar, near Portsmouth, as Naval Nursing Sisters, and five started work at Plymouth.

The sisters were to supervise the nursing of injured and sick seamen, and to train the male sick berth attendants who assisted them. They did little hands-on nursing themselves, and apparently efforts were made to protect them from embarrassment at the display of the male body by shielding all except the patient’s head, shoulders and feet from view – a Victorian nicety that would not survive long.

The uniform at first was a navy blue dress (replaced in summer by a blue skirt and white blouse) covered by a white apron, with a blue shoulder-cape and a white cap with frills and strings. Their badge was an Imperial crown with a double ‘AA’ (for Alexandra), over a naval anchor, with a red cross in a gold circle beneath, all on a black background. This stayed the same, but the uniform was changed after 1902 with red cuffs added to the blue dress and the frilled cap replaced by a white ‘handkerchief’ cap with a naval crown in the corner. The dress was also now linen, rather than the heavier serge used earlier.

In 1902 the service was renamed as Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service, in honour of its president. Applicants had to be trained nurses, between 25 and 48 years of age. Rates of pay in 1911 were £30 to £50 per annum for sisters, with varying rates for head sisters at each hospital – e.g. £40 to £60 at Chatham, £105 to £130 at Plymouth, £125 to £160 at Haslar. The nurses remained civilians and were never subject to naval discipline. At the end of their service they were eligible for a pension.

The QARNNS Reserve was first formed in 1910, creating a pool of nurses from civilian hospitals who were called on for service once the First World War started in 1914, and the much augmented QARNNS nurses served throughout the war. While only about 80 sisters remained on the strength in the inter-war years, the reserve again greatly expanded with the Second World War. Outside the UK the only naval hospitals were in Hong Kong and Malta, and the sisters in Malta endured the air bombardment that led to the whole island being awarded the George Cross for its endurance and courage.

In 1949, when a Medical Branch of the Women’s Royal Naval Service was formed, female sick berth attendants were brought in for training, while women who had served as VADs were allowed to join a new QARNNS Auxiliary Branch as Naval Nurse ratings if they wished.

The QARNNS’ official website (www.qarnns.co.uk) tells the story of the service.

Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps

 

see Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.