Find these photos and more at Esquimalt Municipal hall in our foyer.
The collection was assembled by the Esquimalt Archives team of staff and volunteers.
This exhibit gives a glimpse of the experiences of nurses in WWI through three nurses with Esquimalt connections: Ethel Morrison, Gladys Wake and Elsie Collis, who all served, usually together, at hospitals in Buckinghamshire and Kent, England; Salonika, Greece; and Etaples, France, near Boulogne, from 1915-1918.
Canada was the first country to assign an officer rank to women in military service, whose only way to serve was as nurses. Nursing Sisters were Lieutenants, with the same pay as men, who referred to them as “bluebirds,” owing to their blue uniforms. The average age of these nurses was 29. BC’s nurses received military training at Macaulay Point.
In 1915, British Columbia sent 72 nurses and 32 male physicians and surgeons to war. The Canadian Women’s Nursing Corps was attached to the Canadian Army Medical Corps. In all, 2,845 Canadian Nursing Sisters served in WWI. Of these, at least 58 died as a result of enemy action, disease or drowning.
After demobilization in 1919, many nurses worked in rehabilitation hospitals for injured troops. Some later became public health nurses and were influential in the establishment and growth of the public health and social work professions in Canada.
Ethel Morrison (1877-1954)
Mary Ethel Morrison was born in Pictou, NS, and moved to Victoria in 1898 with her family. She graduated from Vancouver General Hospital’s nursing school in 1906 and enlisted in 1915. She received the Royal Red Cross (a decoration established by Queen Victoria and awarded in the UK and Commonwealth for exceptional services to military nursing), and was twice mentioned in dispatches.
After the war, Nurse Morrison studied public health nursing, and served from 1921-1945 as the school nurse at Lampson St. School. A brief account of her war service appeared in the January 1938 issue of The Canadian Nurse. Her niece, historian Maureen Duffus, donated Nurse Morrison’s photographs and memorabilia to the Esquimalt Municipal Archives.
Gladys Wake (1883-1918)
Gladys Maude Mary (“Bob”) Wake was born in Esquimalt, graduated from Royal Jubilee Hospital School of Nursing in 1912, and enlisted in 1916. She died on May 21, 1918, of severe burns and injuries sustained during a German bomb attack on the Canadian #1 General Hospital in Etaples, France, where she had recently been stationed. She was buried with full military honors, and unusually, her funeral was captured in a film. A memorial plaque can be seen at Esquimalt’s St. Paul’s Church. Mount Wake, in the Thiassi Range, about 90 km northwest of Whistler, is named in her memory.
Elsie Collis (1886-1985)
Elsie Dorothy Collis was born in Harpenden, Bedfordshire, England and arrived in Esquimalt in 1890. After a brief teaching career on Saltspring Island, she graduated from Royal Jubilee Hospital School of Nursing in 1911 and enlisted in 1915. She kept a very informative diary during her war service. She is descriptive about conditions in the various places she served, but quite matter-of-fact about the work itself, caring for the dreadful injuries suffered by soldiers in the field, dealing with the rampant illnesses, and attending funerals.
After the war, she worked at Craigdarroch Military Hospital, as the matron of Resthaven Hospital in Sidney, then at Shaughnessy Military Hospital in Vancouver. She married another veteran and had a family, settling in the Cowichan Valley.
More information about nurses in World War I
Maureen Duffus’ Battlefront nurses of WWI : the Canadian Army Medical Corps in England, France and Salonika, 1914-1919, available at the public library.
Excerpts from Nursing Sister Elsie Collis’ First World War Diary, available at the UVic Library.