Two years after Margaret Leonard returned from the war in Europe, an English soldier wrote to the Army records office in Melbourne, seeking to get in touch with her.  Were his intentions romantic?  Who was the writer? And who was Margaret Leonard?

 

Margaret Jane Leonard’s birth was registered at Chiltern in 1880, the daughter of Joseph Edward Leonard and Elizabeth Williamson.  Joseph Leonard was a school teacher.  Two of Margaret’s brothers became teachers, and two Leonard girls became nurses – Margaret and her sister Eileen.

 

By 1903  the Leonard family had moved on to Bright where Joseph Leonard was the Head Teacher of Bright State School.  In the 1903 and 1905 Electoral Rolls Margaret’s occupation was given as ‘bookkeeper’.   In December 1909, aged 27, Margaret completed nursing training at the Homoeopathic Hospital in St Kilda Road, and had passed examinations set by the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses Association[i].  

 

The Melbourne Homoeopathic Library, Reminiscence of a visit to Victoria, Australia,

August 1889 Part II. Photographer: John Steel 1870?-1896, August 1889. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/303885 

 

The course of study for nurses at the Homoeopathic Hospital lasted three years, with students undergoing lectures on anatomy, physiology and general nursing, with the honorary medical staff giving clinical instruction.  The probationer nurses rotate through the different wards to ensure they gained experience in all kinds of nursing.

 

Although popular in the 19^th Century, homeopathy is now regarded as a pseudoscientific theory of alternative medicine.  All relevant scientific knowledge about physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology gained since at least the mid-19th century contradicts homeopathy.[ii]  The nursing standards in the Homoeopathic Hospital, however, ensured that nurses who passed the annual examinations set by the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses Association were entitled to nurse in any institution, or privately.

 

Melbourne’s Homoeopathic Hospital, commenced in 1876, was the first established in Australia, with the Children’s Hospital in Adelaide following soon after. Other states followed more slowly. The established medical profession of Melbourne at the time consisted mainly of doctors trained in Scottish or English hospitals, and more recently at the University of Melbourne, and they would not accept Homeopathic Doctors joining their medical associations, nor would they practice themselves  in the Homeopathic Hospitals.   Those hospitals therefore could only employ doctors trained in American Homeopathy.  The American doctors found themselves frozen out of the local medical profession, and it became harder and harder to find homeopathic doctors willing to take up contracts in Australia.  This was exacerbated by tightening regulations about who could practice medicine in Australia. By 1923 the Homeopathic Hospital was forced by circumstances to change their constitution and allow orthodox practitioners to consult at the hospital.  In 1934 the name of the hospital was changed to the Prince Henry Hospital, known as Prince Henry’s.

 

For more details about the Homoeopathic Hospital,  see History of Homoeopathy in Australia – Melbourne Homoeopathic Hospital.

 

In 1895, Grace Jennings Carmichael, herself a nurse at the Children’s Hospital, and a writer, paid a visit to the Homoeopathic Hospital, which made a favourable impression on her in terms of the facilities for nurses. 

 

The nurses’ quarters are at the top of the building, and they are very comfortable and complete. A dining-hall and sitting-room are devoted to their especial use, the latter containing a library, for which contributions are always most acceptable. The Homœopathic Hospital nurses are very well cared for, the rougher work being taken from them, and every arrangement made for their comfort both on and off duty. The ward floors are polished by wardsmen; a special maid is told off for the nurses’ quarters, so that they have nothing to do but purely nursing duties – and quite enough too. The custom of keeping nurses constantly at menial work is a mistaken one, and it is rapidly giving way to a more reasonable and humane system.[iii]

 

Margaret was not listed in the Electoral Rolls during her training, but from 1912 to 1915, she was residing at 29 Weinberg Rd, Hawthorn.  After a good deal of hunting through Trove and electoral rolls, this emerged as a nurses’ home run by the Corrie sisters. Their father had been a Presbyterian minister, but had died in 1905, their mother predeceasing him in 1901. Three of the Corrie sisters were nurses, and a fourth one acted as a Superintendent of a Nurses’ Home.   In 1905 they were listed in the Sands & McDougall Directory at 81 Manningtree Rd, Hawthorn, but by 1910 they were located in “Dalriada”, 29 Weinberg (later Wattle) Road, Hawthorn. 

 

This residence would have made a spectacular nurses’ home.

 

 

Advertising (1912, September 26). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved April 3, 2021, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196258401

 

On 17 August 1916 Margaret enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service and began work at the Military Hospital, 5^th Australian General Hospital in St Kilda Rd. The four months she spent there would have given her time to learn the ways of military nursing and discipline, and on 6 December 1916 she embarked for overseas service on the Orsova.

 

 

MOSTLY ABOUT PEOPLE. (1916, November 28). Kyneton Guardian

(Vic. : 1870 - 1880; 1914 - 1918), p. 2. Retrieved April 14, 2021,

from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article129599875

 

 

HMAT Orsova on the right leaving Port Melbourne, 6 December 1916  (AWM PB0776)

 

Margaret spent Christmas 1916 aboard the Orsova along with another three nurses from Essendon – Bessie Weir, Margaret Miles and Clara Mackley.  They disembarked at Plymouth on 17 February 1917, where the authorities finally got round to getting Margaret to complete an Attestation form.  Eleven days later, appointed a Staff Nurse, on 28 February 1917 Margaret embarked for France, having been posted to 26 General Hospital at Etaples. 

 

Etaples military complex. The red circle pinpoints the location of the 26 General Hospital, close to the railway line.  The “Hospital Personnel” quarters is between the hospital and the railway line. Note the proximity of the hospitals to the Training Camps for troops, railway station and important Etaples Bridge. From https://geographicalimaginations.com/2016/09/25/the-hospital-raids/ No source given.   Sister Elsie Tranter called Etaples, ‘a stretch of six kilometres of hospitals’.

 

26 General Hospital, 1916. Wellcome Library

 

Hospital Etaples, after air raids in 1918. Ministry of Information First

World War Official Collection.  © IWM Q 12290.

 

At 26 General Hospital, a British  military hospital at Etaples, there would be no time for a quiet introduction to war conditions for Margaret. Each convoy, containing 115 patients, would come in, usually overnight, from the Casualty Clearing Stations close to the front line, all needing feeding, bathing and clean clothes, beds allocated and a fast turnaround of decisions as to what to do with them in the slightly longer term.  Patients might be sent on to England quite quickly, or retained for further treatment if they would recover in three weeks to enable them to be sent back to the front.  26 GH had a separate ward for isolation purposes, often for men with contagious skin diseases, like impetigo, but also other contagious diseases.

 

Military hospitals need to be close to train lines to bring patients in quickly, and also to be close to ports to enable easy evacuation to England, and those seem to have been the only reasons considered.  Medical staff at the 26 GH were quite critical of the location chosen.  Located close to a river, the soil was either sandy or chalky.  The chalky soil made it very difficult for the handling of liquid wastes from the hospital.  Pits were dug, but tended to be impervious to allowing wastes to seep away.  Orderlies who were tasked with emptying bedpans from the wards had to carry the waste long distances over heavy sand to the pits, and likewise the latrines were located quite long distances from the ward, which was difficult for sick or wounded patients to traverse, particularly at night. In periods of windy weather, the wards were soon coated in dust and grit.

 

The proximity to the railway line posed other health hazards for staff and patients.  The line was a very busy one, night and day, and the exhausted staff doing night duty who had to sleep during the day found their rest disturbed by the noise of the trains passing, the whistles, and the heavy engines steaming past.  The location of the 26 GH was one of the worst available, being the closest to the train line, and the unfortunate medical staff were quartered between the hospital and the train line.

 

But there was an even greater health hazard to patients and staff.  The fact that the hospital had been placed so close to various military targets - the railway line, the training camps, the bridge - and probably deliberately so, protected those targets for a while.  In 1918, however, air raids hit those hospitals in Etaples.  Fortunately for Margaret she was no longer in Etaples.  For an interesting examination of the issue of the proximity of hospitals and military targets, see this article on The Hospital Raids. 

 

A description of the routine of handling arrivals shows an expected military attention to detail, from allocating beds, taking clothing away for fumigation and washing, labelling and storing soldiers’ personal kit, completing forms with name, regiment and diagnosis, as well as previous treatment. Food was organised for the latecomers, baths, clean hospital kit.  Sanitary teams attended to medical waste, orderlies doubling as stretcher bearers, clerks took care of detailed paperwork.  Each general hospital had an xray department, anaesthetists, physicians, surgeons, and cooks.  Nurses took care of dressing wounds, administering medications, feeding patients, taking temperatures, attended surgical procedures as theatre nurses, and other usual nursing duties, at greater volume than they would have met at home.  In the period Jun 1915 to July 1916, average monthly patients admitted at 26 GH could be between 1000 and 2000 patients.  The average daily number of inpatients at the Homeopathic Hospital in 1903 was 58, though they also saw large numbers of outpatients. 

 

A report written in 1918 on the 26 GH indicates that as time went on and Casualty Clearing Stations became more efficient, patients started to arrive at the stationary hospitals in better condition.  Operations that could be conducted safely had already been done, wounds cleaned, and dressing applied, making it much easier for the hospitals receiving those patients further down the line.  Observations had allowed medical staff to make better decisions about whether various operations should be attempted, and when.  Fragments of munitions were best left in situ. Head wounds were better when no operation occurred, but stomach wounds recovered better if they were operated on immediately at the CCS.[iv] 

 

Margaret worked at the 26 General Hospital from 2 Feb 1917 to 9 Aug 1917.  It was during this period that she met William Martin, the author of the letter above.   William was a co-worker at 26 GH, but in what capacity is not clear. The letter indicated that he had been posted to Egypt, was wounded, and  lost all his belongings.  The only clue to his identity was the address from which he wrote on 30 May 1921 -  Builders Arms, Blackheath, Birmingham.   In 1921 it turns out that a James Martin was the licensee.[v] This turned out to be William's father. 

 

The 1911 Census reveals that a member of the household was James Martin’s 15 year old son William Arthur, an errand boy. In 1917 William was 21 years old to Margaret’s 36, so the purpose of his letter was most likely friendship, and perhaps an enquiry about emigration.  In 1924 William emigrated to Canada, his Declaration as a passenger stating that his occupation was “indoor servant”.  In 1921 he might have been considering emigrating to Australia.  The Army records office in Melbourne duly passed on a copy of his letter to Margaret (keeping the original), but whether she responded is not known at present.

 

5 Stationary Hospital  16 Jul 1917 to 8 August 1917

 

Margaret was posted to 5 Stationary Hospital, Dieppe, for 3 weeks.   Elsie Tranter, another nurse, had embarked with Margaret on the Orsova and had served with Margaret in the 26 General Hospital at Etaples, and posted on the same date to Dieppe.  Elsie kept a diary of her experiences, which is quoted extensively on the Through These Lines website.   

 

Elsie commented in her diary:

 

This camp looks like a miniature of No. 26 [at Étaples]. We six newcomers [of which Margaret Leonard was one]  are to live in a hut in the hospital grounds – the rest of the staff are billeted in a house about five minutes walk from here. We will have to go down to them for meals…

 

Dieppe is very hilly – such steep hills, too. The town is very attractive – very nice shops and the beach is quite gay – a shingle beach thronged with people. The big casino and all the large hotels along the sea front are now being used as hospitals or convalescent homes.

 

28.7.1917  We are a very discontented family here – if we were here on this side of the world just for a holiday it would be alright but though we enjoy sightseeing and the rest and change, we all know what the rush of work is at No. 26 and long to be back. The hospital is beautifully kept — the huts are spotless, polished floors, white covers for the beds and lockers. There are more orderlies than patients at present and of the patients there are no seriously wounded ones. Our work is most uninteresting, merely probationer’s work…[vi]

 

Elsie also reported enjoyable sightseeing while in Dieppe.  Elsie remained in Dieppe for some months, but Margaret was posted again and reported for duty on 19 Aug 1917 to  3 Australian General Hospital, Abbeville.

 

3 AGH Abbeville

 

This hospital had begun caring on Lemnos, receiving patients from Gallipoli, and had followed the troops to Egypt and later England.  By June 1917 they were operating in Abbeville, where Margaret joined them in August.

 

The hospital operated from tents and huts at Abbeville, in the Somme area of France. For most of its existence on the Western Front (May 1917 to May 1918) it admitted gassed patients and treated them briefly before sending them to other places.[vii]

 

 The 3 Australian General Hospital at Abbeville, France, 1919. Artist Laurence Howie. AWM ART93080

 

 

A ward in the 3rd Australian General Hospital. Left to right: Staff Nurse McKay (standing, left, rear); unidentified patient; Sergeant Sewell, patient (leaning on wall); unidentified patient; Corporal A. Mallinson (in white coat); four unidentified patients in bed. 23 June 1918.  AWM E02602

 

 

38 Stationary Hospital 15 Nov 1917 Genoa, Italy

 

Piazza De Ferrari, Genoa, circa 1910,  State Library Collection Accession No H82.254/8/38

 

The Italian Front was very similar to the Western Front - bogged down in trench warfare, but at high altitudes, in mountainous terrain, and with freezing winters.  The supply lines to the Italian troops were very long and unreliable.  Nothwithstanding this, towards the end of 1917 the Italians had worn down the Austro-Hungarian troops, though failed to secure the victory because of their lengthy supply lines.  The Austro-Hungarians called for help from Germany, and a new offensive routed the Italians.  Faced with a disaster in Italy, the British began to send in troops in November 1917.  38 Stationary Hospital went with them.

 

By May 1917 there were 155 AANS members serving in Imperial hospitals in France, as well as detached members of the staff of the three General Hospitals. In June 1917 a War Office letter requested that those 155 members be grouped together in three British hospitals under the charge of their own AANS Matrons.  The three hospitals where the Australians would work were:

 

25 General Hospital requiring a staff of 100

5 Stationary Hospital, requiring a staff of 20

38 Stationary Hospital requiring a staff of 35

 

Before Margaret had even joined them,  it was advised that 38 Stationary Hospital should proceed to Genoa, Italy, for service, and Margaret, together with other Australian nurses then stationed at Abbeville, were collected at the Nurses’ Home to travel to Italy by 21 Ambulance Train on 15 Nov 1917.[viii]

 

On arrival in Genoa they were billeted in a hotel, while the hospital was established in one of the city’s large schools. With Matron Ethel Davidson in charge of 27 nurses, and as many of the original staff as possible, they established a hospital of 400 beds.  The nurses were transported by ambulance each day between their hotel and the hospital in the school.

 

AANS nurse Helen Keith commented  in an interview in 1919 that, “I was transferred to No. 38 Stationary, in Genoa, Italy... We received patients straight from the line, and they were nearly all Tommies, but later we took in Austrians, who were in a terribly emaciated state, and had terribly [sic] wounds”.[ix]

While stationed in Genoa, Margaret participated in a concert put on by the local ex-patriate community.  As the daughter of a teacher, Margaret would have been accomplished at the recitation she offered as part of the entertainment.

 

 

Concert program of the Patriotic League of Britons Overseas, held on 19 Feb 1918

in Genoa.  AWM Collection

 

Margaret took leave while at Genoa from 26 March 1918, returning to duty on 17 April. After the Armistice Margaret again took some leave, her record stating  that she took it in Italy, from 10 Dec 1918 unti 24 Dec 1918, returning in time for Christmas Eve. 

 

Just under a month later on 18 Jan 1919, Margaret was ordered to proceed to the UK for duty.  She disembarked at Southampton on 22 Jan 1919  with orders to report to Australian Headquarters in London.  She was evidently briefly attached for duty with the 3 Australian Army Hospital, then at Dartford, as she was marched out from there on 7 Feb 1919 to board the Lancashire  for home, though on duty as part of the nursing staff.

 

Although Margaret's service record notes that she was discharged on 3 May 1919, there is a further notation on 16 Aug 1920 saying, "Still on the strength of the AIF".

 

Welcome Home

 

"The Chronicle," (1919, May 1). Yea Chronicle (Yea, Vic. : 1891 - 1920), p. 2 (MORNING).

Retrieved April 14, 2021, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60039555

 

Margaret never stopped doing her duty for the servicemen of the AIF.  Margaret Leonard continued nursing at the Caulfield Military Hospital (11 AGH), and was still there to celebrate 20 years of service to ex-servicemen.  Electoral Rolls in the 1920s and 1930s show Margaret residing at 11 AGH, Caulfield. 

 

The interior of a ward in No. 11 Australian General Hospital (AGH). Nurses and patients, soldiers wearing the hospital uniform, are in the background. Note the plaques at the end of the beds. AWM J00119

 

Exterior view of the wards at No. 11 Australian General Hospital (AGH). At left the sign states Wards 1 to 14 were presented by State Schools Patriotic League. At right is the Administration Block. AWM J00120

 

 

Margaret finally retired in 1940, aged 60, an event notable enough to be reported in a Melbourne newspaper. Her name would have been well-known amongst the ex-servicemen and their families who had anything to do with Caulfield Hospital.  

 

 

 

After her retirement, Margaret joined her sisters in Essendon.  In 1942 she was residing at 11 Loeman St, Essendon with Mabel (home duties),  Eileen (nurse) and brother William Anthony (teacher).  Eileen Leonard was the youngest in the family, and a good eleven years younger than Margaret.  Eileen was certified as a Trained Nurse on 21 Oct 1921 at the Homeopathic Hospital.  Given the three year training, Eileen would have started her training in 1919, at the age of 28, perhaps around the time Margaret returned from abroad.  Prior to commencing her training, Eileen worked as a shop assistant.   After completing her training, Eileen was listed at the family home in Essendon, suggesting she was working as a private nurse, or perhaps in a hospital or nursing home nearby.

 

In her later years, as was so common with ex-war personnel, Margaret applied to the Repatriation Department for assistance.  Margaret has two B73 files but they have not yet been examined and made available to the public.

 

Margaret's death was registered in Heidelberg, most likely at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, in 1966, aged 86.  She was known for her 'sympathy and generous nature which endeared her to everyone in the institution'.  This seems to be a hallmark of Margaret's nursing.

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[i] ROYAL, VICTORIAN TRAINED NURSES' ASSOCIATION. (1909, July 1). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 4. Retrieved April 2, 2021, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10716015

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy/

[iii] http://www.historyofhomeopathy.com.au/component/content/article/18-articles/283-the-homopathic-hospital.html

[iv] Medical history of No. 26 General Hospital from mobilisation to 26th July 1916. Reference RAMC/728/2/3  Part of  Royal Army Medical Corps Muniments Collection. Wellcome Library.

[v] https://www.longpull.co.uk/downloads.html Rowley Regis 4th Edition download.

[vi] http://throughtheselines.com.au/research/dieppe Retrieved 11 Apr 2021.

[vii] https://www.birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/3rd_Australian_General_Hospital retrieved 5 Apr 2021.

[viii] Report on the Work of the Australian Army Nursing Service in France, by E M McCarthy, Matron-in-Chief, British Troops in France and Flanders, Headquarters, 21 July 1919,  TNA  WO/222/2134. http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/21.html retrieved 5 Apr 2021.

[ix] AWM 41 1072 Interviews containing accounts of Nursing experiences in the AANS.  These nurses were interviewed by Matron Kellett, AAN.

 

SOURCES

Ancestry: Victorian Electoral Rolls

Australian War Memorial Collection

Birtwistlewiki

Genealogical Society of Victoria Genealogical Index of Names (subscription) 

Geographical Imaginations: Wars, Spaces and Bodies

Great War Forums

History of Homoeopathy

Hitchmough’s Black Country Pubs

Imperial War Museum

National Archives, B2455 Service Records

Sand & McDougall Directories - State Library of Victoria

Scarletfinders

State Library of Victoria Collection

The National Archives, UK (TNA)

Through These Lines

Trove, NLA

Victorian Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages

Wellcome Library

 

War Service Commemorated

Essendon Town Hall F-L