My previous blog introduced the wonderful photograph album belonging to Mary Muscat, a nurse in Malta. The whole album has been digitised and available to browse online. Mary's life had been well researched and we know a lot about her. However, many of the photographs have named nurses below them; these women are unknown to us. I decided to find out more about their lives before and after the war. What became of them? Did they continue nursing? Marry? Survive the War? I was intrigued and decided to investigate!
This is the second nurse who I researched, and what a fascinating woman she turned out to be!
Olive and colleagues, Malta 1917
Olive May Billinghurst
The names given in all of the photographs were either only first names or surnames - not very helpful if it was a common name! However, the National Archives in the UK hold many military nurses' records. An initial search of the name "Billinghurst" immediately led me to Olive as she was the only nurse with that surname and she had served in Malta!
Olive was born on 3rd May 1886 in Camberwell, London. Her father was a banker and the family were well off enough to have servants. I was therefore amazed to find that in 1911 Olive was a cookery teacher in Bedford! By tracing her address in the census return I discovered she was teaching at the Bedfordshire Training Home for Girls, set up with the object of helping girls of good character living in dangerous surroundings and train them for domestic service. I found a photo of the matron with the girls at the time that she worked there.
I do not know when or why Olive decided to become a nurse, but according to the Nursing Register, she trained at the London Hospital in Whitechapel from 1911 to 1913. I do know that her brother Walter was an orthopaedic surgeon at the hospital at that time. It seems likely that he had some influence on her decision!
I'm extremely grateful to nursing historian Sarah Rogers who uncovered some really interesting details about Olive's training. Olive's report said:-
Olive Billinghurst proved very disappointing for she had many educational advantages, and ought to have been capable of developing into a good nurse.' From early on she 'showed signs of being too actively interested in the women's suffrage question' --- and her work suffered. It was said that unless she tried harder she would be dismissed. Apparently this 'roused' her and for a while she made ';marked improvement'. They felt she had a bad memory, and was 'feeble' when managing probationers, and was poor at ward management. She had however a 'kindly nature, refined manners, and took correction well'.
Examination: Honours and very satisfactory, work good, conduct good
Sick room cookery- theory- 1st class practical 2nd grade
"Too actively interested in women's suffrage" Way to go Olive! Slightly surprised that she only managed a 2nd grade exam result in practical cookery, as she was a cookery teacher before becoming a nurse!
London Hospital
From 1913-1916 Olive worked at several hospitals in England including a military hospital in Birmingham. She applied to join the QAIMNS in 1915. She was initially refused permission to join, a medical board citing Angina and heart problems. However due to some shameless name dropping (several letters on her file testifying to this including one from her father, a Captain in the London Irish Rifles) she was accepted for duty and embarked for Malta on 12th August 1916.
There is a tremendous amount of information about the Maltese Hospitals online (see link below) It has been stated that female nursing staff remained short-handed during July, August and September of 1916 - no doubt Olive would have been a welcome addition. More help from England only arriving to any appreciable extent in October, when their numbers rose from 427 to 592; in December they reached a maximum of 625 for the period.
Olive remained in Malta until embarking for England in September 1919. She was most anxious to remain in the service but like 100s of other nurses, she was no longer required and discharged from the QAIMNS. Indeed, by the 1921 census she is back in South London living with her mother and sister. She pointedly notes her occupation as "Late an Army Nurse, Various Places. Unemployed." She was 35.
What became of her after the War? I was pleased to find a lot of information on her life after the War - from Newspaper Archives! It would seem that Olive was a very independent and busy woman. For example, I know that she drove her own car in the early 1930s which was probably very unusual. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to be a very good driver! I have found that there were at least four occasions when she was hauled before magistrates for traffic offences. In one instance, she parked in a no parking area. In her defence she stated she always parked on the North side of the road and that she hadn't noticed any notices!
As well as driving around the town, Olive was very active in local politics being a councillor and Vice Chair of Charlwood Council. She was also mentioned many times in relation to her activities for the local WI, giving very progressive talks about how women won the vote, the need for more school books and raising the school leaving age.
She also won a cake making competition - her cooking skills winning the day!
In the 1939 register, Olive proudly states that she is a "hospital nurse: late of the army" This was some 20 years after she was discharged from the services, despite writing several letters at the time pleading to be allowed to continue working. This was common practice but a very sad end to her career.
As a footnote to Olive's story - I discovered that one of her sisters was very active in the fight for women's suffrage. As Olive had given talks of the struggle for the vote I looked up the surname on a list of women who had been imprisoned. Olive was not on it. Her sister, Rosa May, was! Further research revealed that Rosa was very active and a well known campaigner. She had been paralysed by polio since childhood but was a formidable campaigner. She was arrested several times and force fed after going on hunger strike. There is a lot of information about her online. Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London. She became active in social work in a Greenwich workhouse, taught in a Sunday School, and joined the temperance Band of Hope.[4]
I'm so pleased to be able to tell the story of Olive - a woman from a wealthy family who nevertheless ploughed her own furrow and was someone who contributed so much to society. She never married and died in 1957. Olive's brother became a doctor and worked in Shanghai for 15 years. Her father was a Captain in the Great War. He and his wife brought up two very feisty yet caring daughters.
Thank you Olive for your service and Rosa, for helping us win the vote!
http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/190.html
https://bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk/CommunityHistories/Bedford/BedfordTrainingHomeforGirls/BedfordshireTrainingHome.aspx
https://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/generalnews/rumours-and-arrests/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_May_Billinghurst
Ancestry.co.uk
British Newspaper Archive
https://pure.hud.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/70828038/Sarah_Rogers_Thesis.pdf
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