Volunteers of Essendon and Flemington, 1914-1918
Miles M E Staff nurse Margaret Ethel Nurses 26 Nurse Single C of E
Address: Essendon
Next of Kin: Miles, A, father, 6 Napier St, Essendon
Enlisted: 6 Dec 1916
Embarked: A67 Orsova 6 Dec 1916
Relatives on Active Service
Pte 5697 Abel Miles, enlisted in Fitzroy, cousin
Staff Nurse Margaret Edith Miles
by Lenore Frost
Margaret Ethel Miles began her hospital training, aged 22, at the Warrnambool Hospital in 1912, completing her three years at the end of 1914 when she passed the examination of the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses’ Association.[i]
Warrnambool Hospital, circa 1920. Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection. H32492/2815
A news item in the Warrnambool Standard in February 1915 commented that she had left the hospital[ii], though she appeared in the Sands Victorian Directory in Warrnambool in 1915. By the 1916 edition she was listed at the Austral Hotel, Colac, where she was probably boarding.
Austral Hotel, Colac, circa 1908. Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection. H96.200/1536
Margaret Miles was also listed in Warrnambool again in the 1916 and 1917 Victorian Directories, possibly having returned to the Warrnambool Hospital for a period.
By August 1916 Miles was working at the No 5 Australian General Hospital in St Kilda Rd, Melbourne, where she remained until she embarked Australian Army Nursing Service on the Orsova on 6 December 1916, with the appointment of Staff Nurse.
Operating Theatre and staff of the 5 Australian General Hospital, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne, circa WW1. AWM H18695
5 Australian General Hospital, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne. AWM H18692.
Her attestation form reveals her to be a slight figure, 5’ 1” tall and 7 stone 4 pound (or 1.5m and 46 kilograms). She had brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion, and was aged 26 years.[iii]
Orsova disembarked its passengers at Plymouth on 17 February 1917 and within 11 days Margaret had left for France where she was posted to the 24 General Hospital which was a British military hospital in Etaples.[iv]
In April 1917 Margaret was stricken with tonsillitis and sent to hospital. The Army sent a notification to her parents that she was ill, but perhaps Margaret had sent her family a cable before they received that notification, as the response from her father did not seem particularly perturbed. He merely hoped that the illness wasn’t serious and that Margaret would be back giving her services to her country.
Letter contained in Staff Nurse Miles' B2455 Attestation folder at the National Archives of Australia.
Margaret Ethel Miles was born in South Yarra in 1890, to parents Abel Miles and Kate Haggett Parr. She was christened at Christ Church, South Yarra. Her father was a baker, and the time of her enlistment the family business and residence was at 6 Napier St, Essendon. In the 1915 Sands & McDougall Directory the business was at No 8, which probably involved a re-numbering than a move. Margaret’s cousin Abel Miles did his baker’s apprenticeship with her father in Napier St. He joined the AIF in February 1916 as an 18 year old pastrycook, and served with the 14 Infantry Battalion, regimental number 5697.
Growing up with the Rutherford sisters in the newsagency just around the corner in Fletcher St might have influenced Margaret to take up nursing.
Napier St Essendon in 1904. The Miles Bakery was in the shops on the left of the picture.
Source: Lenore Frost.
Margaret’s service in France seems to have been with both the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Australian Army Medical Corps, being reassigned every few weeks. She began in the General Hospitals in Etaples and Rouen but in June 1918 began receiving postings with Casualty Clearing Stations, which were a good deal closer to the front lines and much more dangerous than the General and Stationary Hospitals near the ports. She was assigned to both British and Australian Stations, and was shifted regularly, sometimes covering long distances. Some of these postings refer to being on the Surgical Team. It was a strenuous schedule, broken up by periods of illness, and occasional leave.
The following is a rough list of the units where Margaret was posted, with an estimate of where the places were, based on a list of British hospitals and Casualty Clearing Stations on the Long, Long Trail website.
Working with RAMC
2.3.17 Royal Army Medical Corps, 3rd Echelon,
posted to 24 General Hospital, Etaples
8.4.17 To Hospital sick, 24 General Hospital, admitted tonsilitis
13.4.17 Discharged to convalescent home.
20.4.17 returned from sick 24 General Hospital
9.5.17 to Hospital sick 24 General Hospital
Working with AAMC
20.5.17 returned from Hospital to 2 AGH, Wimereux near Boulougne
26.9.1917 posted to the 1st Australian General Hospital, Rouen
30.12.17 to Hospital Gastritis
2.2.18 Leave to Paris
9.2.18 Rejoined unit Rouen
Front of the sisters' quarters of the 2nd Australian General Hospital (2AGH), Wimereux, circa 1917.
AWM P12582.003.001
Hospital buildings of 2nd AGH, 1916-1918, Wimereux. Photographer Percy Alfred Peachy.
AWM P11626.010.
Working with RAMC
8 4 18 to hospital sick from 24 General Hospital
Working with AAMC
30.6.18 posted to the 2 ACCS at Steenwerck, near the Belgian Border.
30.6.18 posted to 2 ACCS from 1 AGH with Surgical Team
Sister Ada Smith, AANS, outside her living quarters, 2ACCS, Steenwerck, circa 1916.
AWM P00156.058
,
Medical orderlies at the 2nd Australian Casualty Clearing Station near Steenwerck moving patients over duckboard walkways using a two-tiered stretcher holder on wheels. The stretcher holder could run along railway tracks leading to the train (seen in the background), which pulled up right at the camp. Here the orderlies are changing direction at a turntable, circa 1917. P00156.061
Stretcher bearers of the 6th Field Ambulance carrying the wounded from an Advanced Dressing Station
to a waiting motor ambulance for conveyance to the Casualty Clearing Station. September 1918. AWM E03137.
Working with RAMC
7.8.1918 posted to 20 CCS Vignacourt; Heilly
10.8.18 transferred to 55th CCS ex 20th CCS Longre; Vecquemont
30.8.18 Posted to 47 CCS for duty
1.9.18 posted 47th CCS ex 55th CCS for duty Edgehill
9.9.18 posted to 61 CCS for duty Vequemont, Proyart or Maricourt?
Working with AAMC
14.9.1918 1 AGH from 47th CCS Rouen ex Surgical team, Rouen
17.9.18 Posted to No 1 Surgical Team for duty Rouen
Tent Wards 1 AGH, Rouen, 1918. AWM EO3422.
Sisters’ Quarters, 1 AGH, Rouen, Sep 1918. AWM EO3443.
Nurses’ Sitting Room, 1 AGH, Sep 1918
Working with RAMC
18.9.1918 12 CCS ex 1 AGH Moulle
25.9.1918 47 CCS Reported for duty from 12 CCS Edgehill or Brie
24.9.18 posted 47 CCS ex 12 CCS Temp duty Edgehill or Brie
2.10.18 posted to 12th CCS ex 47th Longpre, La Chapelette or Tincourt
9.10.19 5 CCS Bihecourt
14.10.18 Evacuated to hospital, sick
15.10.18 Admitted to Hospital, influenza, Rouen
Working with AAMC
19.10.18 Posted to 1 AGH from 5th CCS ex hospital sick
25.10.18 – 11.11.18 Leave to UK
19.12.1918 O/S to Sutton Veny for duty with 1 AGH ex France
6.1.19 Detached from duty at 1 AGH Sutton Veny to Report to AIF HQ, London.
2.2.19 – 9.2.19 Leave to Paris
27.2.19 Embarked on the Orsova for Return To Australia as part of the Nursing Staff.
3.4.19 Termination of period of enlistment.
On 16 February 1919, before leaving London, Sister Margaret Miles, AANS, completed a Repatriation application for assistance with the reinstatement of employment – which had been at the 5 Australian General Hospital, St Kilda Rd. Whether she was re-employed at 5 AGH in St Kilda Rd is not clear.
This Bereavement Notice appeared in The Argus on 24 January 1920. A death notice a couple of weeks
earlier was for Muriel Frances Styles, aged 24, who died at her parents' home at 1 Byron St, St Kilda.
The above notice shows that she was engaged in private nursing in January 1920, but the following month she was evidently working at 11 AGH in Caulfield. She placed an advertisement in 1920 to recover a lost wallet:
LOST, in King's Theatre, Brown Leather Wallet,
containing money and letter, Reward. Sister
Miles. Caulfield Military Hospital.
Classified Advertising (1920, February 14).
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 13.
Likewise, the 1921 the Electoral Roll showed that Margaret Ethel Miles, nurse, was resident at No 11 Australian General Hospital, Kooyong Rd, Caulfield.
Matron and Staff Nurses at 11 Australian General Hospital, Caulfield, 1919. Margaret might have been
included in this photo. AWM DAX2459.
11 Australian General Hospital, Caulfield, 1919.
Early in 1920 Margaret travelled to Sydney and took a boat to Honolulu where she remained for a couple of years before moving on to San Francisco in the USA. It might have been a holiday, or a working holiday. She might have travelled with a fellow nurse looking for a bit of fun and adventure rather than the endless strain of looking after badly wounded soldiers. Her service medals caught up with her in San Francisco, where she signed a receipt for them on 20 January 1924, at 2215 Buchanan St, San Francisco, California.
The move became a bit more permanent when she married William McIntyre, a Scot, according to Ancestry trees, in 1927, and became a naturalised citizen of the USA in that year. Margaret died in Vancouver, Canada in 1972, aged 82.
[i] TRAINED NURSES' ASSOCIATION. (1914, December 23). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 11. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10823512.
[ii] WARRNAMBOOL HOSPITAL (1915, February 6). Warrnambool Standard (Vic. : 1914 - 1918), p. 1 (COUNTRY EDITION). http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73561690.
[iii] B2455 form for Margaret Ethel Miles, National Archives of Australia.
[iv] https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/british-base-hospitals-in-france/
War Service Commemorated
Essendon Town Hall L-R
North Essendon Methodist Church
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