Women to the Front: the Extraordinary Australian Women Doctors of the Great War

Penguin

Discovering stories about forgotten or marginalised women from history continues to be one of my passions. For the last ten years or so, this blog has attempted to bring some of them to light, and so it is always an enormous pleasure to see others publishing such enlightening books that will reach wider audiences.

Although many people are still surprised to learn that there were women doctors who served during World War I, this was something I’d always known from an early age, due to the fact that my late aunt had been a nursing VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) and she told me that she had worked with female doctors in hospitals on the island of Malta and on the Eastern Front at Salonika in 1917-1918. [See Note below.]

This book focusses on just twenty-four Australian women doctors who defied the prejudices and policies of the military establishment and made their own invaluable contribution to the war effort. Between them, they displayed extraordinary grit, determination and courage and saved untold numbers of lives yet their achievements remain shadowy at best. And when they returned home many had their experiences negated due to the attitudes of the time.

As the authors Heather Sheard and Ruth Lee state, neither the British nor the Australian National Archives carry any official service records for these women. They have had to rely on small collections of letters, diaries and other materials and it is impossible to know for sure how many Australian women doctors went to war. “The paucity of official records for the women … and the lack of sources generally, has meant that while some women’s experiences are relatively well documented, of others there are very few traces.”

The book is eminently readable as it weaves the experiences of these women within the timeline of the War at both the Western and Eastern Fronts, in the Mediterranean and Middle East as well as England and Scotland. Its last third contains more detailed biographical details of each doctor listed. With the aid of the index, this will be an invaluable resource for anyone researching a woman in particular to find out where and when she served.

This is a most important and worthy addition to the history of women in World War I and is highly recommended.




Note:

Also see my earlier review of “Isabella and the String of Beads” by Katrina Kirkwood about another British woman doctor, Dr. Isabella Stenhouse. This book mentions Dr. Helen Greene who was a friend of both my late Aunt, Peggy Atkins, and her fiance, Sgt. Alex Hennell, when they all worked together in Malta during World War I.  Sgt. Hennell visited Dr. Greene when on leave in England and she and the other lady doctors of Malta are referred to in several of his letters.