Sister Penelope FRATER - Australian Family Tree Connections

Sister Penelope F
a Boer War and WWI nurse remembered
© Christine Frater
A site on Anzac Parade, Canberra has been dedicated for a Boer War memorial
monument to be erected to honour our Boer War servicemen and nurses
Penelope FRateR was born 26 January 1869, the daughter
of Alexander and Penelope (Hay) FRateR at Merrylong
Park on the Liverpool Plains, in the New England area
of NSW. She was 31 and single when she enlisted on
19 January 1900 in the NSW Nursing Sisters’ Reserve to
serve in South Africa. As a fully qualified and experienced
nurse she was given the honorary rank of Lieutenant.
Penelope’s parents’ lives were a great early settlers’ tale.
They arrived from Scotland as assisted migrants in June
1851. Her father Alexander worked as a shepherd in the
farming areas on the outskirts of Sydney until 1869, then
took up ‘Merrylong’ (where Penelope was born) until 1911,
finally settling on his own property ‘Millfield’ as a grazier
at Deep Creek near Narrabri. FRateR family history shows
that he was keen on horse racing in and around the New
England area and particularly the Narrabri races. It is
pure speculation that as part of his successful farming he
may have supplied some of the estimated 25,000 horses
to leave Australia for South Africa during the Boer War.
The FRateRs had ten children, seven boys, three girls.
Penelope was the eighth, and the second daughter. Their
youngest child, Fergus Stewart, also served in the Boer
War as No 26, Trooper, NSW Citizens Bushmen.
Training to be a nurse was not available in Narrabri.
Leaving the family home Penelope travelled to Sydney
late in 1891 and, staying with one of her brothers who ran
the Sans Souci Hotel, she was accepted as a Probationer
at the Sydney Hospital in November. Here the two-year
nurse training program was along the lines developed
by Florence NiGhtiNGaLe and brought to Australia by
her protégé, Lady Superintendent Lucy OsBURN, some
30 years earlier, after the success of the NiGhtiNGaLe
approach to military nursing in the Crimean War. Student
nurses’ records of progress were carefully maintained for
both the theoretical, e.g. ‘Anatomy and Physiology passed
at viva voce’ and practical, e.g. ‘On day duty in ABC
Female Surgical Ward. Proved good, conscientious, and
painstaking’. Later in her training Penelope’s duties had her
working in both the men’s medical and surgical wards.
The NSW Nursing Sisters’ Reserve, raised in 1898, was
the first female army unit in any Australian colony, and
was commanded by Lady Superintendent (Matron) Ellen
(Nellie) GOULD who had been in charge of Penelope’s
nurse training at Sydney Hospital. Immediately before
her own enlistment Nellie GOULD was the Matron of
Rydalmere Hospital for the Insane and, as one wag later
put it, ‘quite suitable preparation for nursing in South
Africa’. In all probability most of the recruits that Nellie
accepted had trained under her at Sydney Hospital.
Their uniforms were modelled on the English ones:
grey with chocolate facing (faced and braided for lady
superintendents, chocolate cuffs for matrons and cuffs
with two chocolate stripes for nursing sisters) and red
cape, cap with veil. Each nurse was provided with a
uniform to the value of £4.
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Nurses were required to provide, at their own expense,
a chatelaine a type of wallet (toolkit) which was worn
around the waist. These could cost up to £6 (a large outlay
for nurses at that time) and contained instruments such as
forceps, probes, scissors, spatulas, thermometer, syringes
Sister Penelope FRATER
Australian Family Tree Connections November 2013
Sister Penelope FRateR
L–R: Superintendent Julie BLIGH JOHNSTON, Sister Penelope FRATER, Lady Superintendent Nellie GOULD
and catheters. Penelope still had her chatelaine in the
1930s and used some of its contents.
The nurses left Sydney as part of the second NSW
contingent to go to the Boer War, only two months after
the first. All 14 nurses were officially included in the
108 strong NSW Army Medical Corps Team commanded
by Lt Col R V KeLLy, sailing from Sydney on the SS
Moravian on 17 January 1900. 405 officers and men of the
NSW Mounted Rifles/1st NSW Mounted Rifles also sailed
on 17 January 1900 on the Southern Cross, following the
175 gunners of A Battery, Royal Australian Artillery who
had left on 30 December 1899 on the Warrigal.
As the nurses were preparing to board ship in Sydney
the British Army was having a string of serious military
reversals in South Africa. The press quickly dubbed the
period 10-15 December 1899 as ‘Black Week’ to describe
the outright defeats at the battles at Colenso, Stormberg
and Magesfontein while at the same time Boer forces had
besieged British troops inside the towns of Mafeking,
Ladysmith and Kimberley. Despite these losses, the
British War Office announced that colonial nurses going
to South Africa would not be treating Regular Army
soldiers (meaning those from Great Britain), reserving
this duty to British-trained Army nurses. Colonial nurses
would also not be attached to marching columns in the
field ambulance role, nor would they be posted to field
hospitals just behind the lines.
The British commanders on the ground took little notice
of these instructions. Penelope FRateR’s group was to be
dispersed to various British hospitals, nursing all who were
sent, including captured Boers. When Nellie GOULD led
her 13 nurses down the SS Moravian’s gangplank at the
Cape Town docks in early February 1900 her orders from
the British Army Medical Service were to despatch six
Australian Family Tree Connections November 2013
nurses just a short distance south to the British General
Hospital at Wynberg, and four to the No 2 Stationary
Hospital 800kms on the other side of the Cape on the
coast at East London. Nellie GOULD, her deputy Julia
BLiGh JOhNstON, Penelope FRateR and one other were
posted to a temporary Stationary Hospital at Sterkstroom,
a small inland town on the eastern side of South Africa,
about 250km north west of East London, to serve with the
NSW Army Medical Corps. So much for the British War
Office’s instructions!
As the tide of the war turned in March 1900 with the
capture of Bloomfontein, NSW nurses were sent to the
No 3 British General Hospital at Kroonstad and No 2
at Johannesburg. In August four nurses were posted to
No 17 Stationary Hospital in the eastern Transvaal at
Middelburg and No 6 General at Johannesburg. They were
transferred again in September 1901 to No 25 Stationary
at Johannesburg where they stayed until February 1902
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Sister Penelope FRateR
when they were posted even further forward to No 31
Stationary at Ermelo, a bare hillside at the end of the line
of British forts in the Transvaal. The surgical wards were
filled with the wounded and victims of accidents, mostly
from working with horses and wagons. The larger medical
wards were overflowing with patients suffering from
typhoid (enteric fever) and related probelsm of dysentery.
Yellow jaundice and sunburn were perennial, and in 1901
nurses also had to treat an enormous number of both
soldiers and civilians who had caught measles that raged
through the population.
Other nurses were needed in various repatriation
hospitals and were also sent on trains and ships
accompanying the sick and wounded.
One of the 14 NSW nurses, Sister A D M (Bessie)
POcOcK, was Mentioned in Dispatches.
Although peace was declared on 31 May 1902 Penelope
and her fellow nurses did not return until August. All
nurses who served the full war were awarded both the
Queen’s (Victoria) South Africa Medal and the King’s
(Edward VII) South Africa Medal.
Back in Sydney, Lady Superintendent Nellie GOULD
and her friend, Superintendent Julia BLiGh JOhNstON,
opened a private hospital at Newtown, Sydney, calling
it ‘Ermelo’ after their last front line posting in South
Africa. It is probable that Penelope FRateR joined them
in that venture. Nellie GOULD was appointed from
1 January 1901 – Federation – to run the Commonwealth
Australian Army Nursing Service Reserve in New South
Wales and was appointed principal matron of the 2nd
Military District. Penelope FRateR’s record shows that she
Close up showing open and closed chatelaines
continued as ‘efficient’ in the peace time Army unit. After
‘Ermelo’ was sold in 1912, both Nellie GOULD and Julia
BLiGh JOhNstON joined the Public Health Department.
When WWI broke out Sister FRateR, giving her address
care of her sister and her mother at Oatley in Sydney’s
Sutherland Shire, enlisted on 27 September 1914 to join
the Army Nursing Service of the Australian Imperial
Expeditionary Force to serve overseas.
Penelope sailed on the Braemar Castle from Alexandria
to Marseilles to be part of the British Expeditionary Force,
and she and her colleagues were soon setting up and
working their own unit hospital. They were overwhelmed
by the number of wounded and found themselves working
day and night in extremely crowded conditions.
They were trying to accommodate three or four times
as many patients as the unit was designed to handle.
Penelope nursed with many units in the area and on
hospital ships evacuating wounded from Gallipoli. From
there she was posted to England where she and her friends
enjoyed two weeks leave before being posted to Lemnos.
The casualties were very high there and many hospitals
lacked basic essentials. The nurses were housed in tents
and the food was responsible for some of the illnesses
contracted by the hospital staff, including malaria, which
was to affect them for the rest of their lives.
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Australian Family Tree Connections November 2013
Sister Penelope FRateR
Sister Penelope FRATER’s replica Boer War and WWI medals
In January 1915 she was posted to No 3 Army General
Hospital near Cairo and Penelope was appointed Head
Sister. In May that year she went with the unit to France
where they were once again housed in tents and the
nursing was very heavy, as they acted as a casualty clearing
station. In March 1918 she returned to Australia on a
hospital ship nursing the wounded and continued to nurse
them at St George’s Heights Military Hospital. In 1919
she was posted to India, where she nursed the wounded
at Bangladore before returning to Australia at the end of
the year. It was from this hospital that she received her
discharge.
As many of the wounded were in hospital for weeks or
even months at a time, Sister FRateR gave her patients
autograph books to write, draw or paint in as a means to
occupational therapy. Some of the artwork in these books
was truly amazing.
After her discharge she worked tirelessly for her fellow
ex-service personnel, some of whom were suffering
from service related illnessess and financial problems.
She was fortunate to be able to buy herself a house in
Cronulla which was her base in assisting her fellow service
personnel with their problems.
In an unfortunate event, her home was destroyed in a
bushfire, taking with it memorabilia from her travels, her
war medals and decorations.
In appreciation of the work Sister Penelope FRateR did
to help her fellow service men and women, the Cronulla
RSL banded together and rebuilt her house. Unfortunately,
two weeks after moving into her new home, she was
admitted to hospital and died on 12 December 1939,
aged 70, only a few months after World War II began.
Penelope FRateR was cremated and there is a headstone
Australian Family Tree Connections November 2013
commemorating her war service in the Woronora
Cemetery. Sutherland Shire also named Frater’s Avenue in
her honour.
Sources
Australian War Memorial http://australia.gov.au/aboutaustralia/australian-story/women-in-action
The Australian Women’s Register http://womenaustralia.
info/biogs/AWE0397b.htm
Bassett, Jan Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing
from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford University
Press Australia, 1992
Boer War Memorial www.bwm.org.au
Keith Smith, Boer War Memorial researcher
Murray, Lt Col P L, RAA (Ret.) Official Records of the
Australian Military Contingents to the War in South
Africa, compiled and edited for the Department of
Defence by Lt Col P L Murray RAA (Ret.), Government
Printer, Melbourne, 1911, p14
Recollections of Elva E Marsh, niece
Wallace, Robert L, Elands River Siege 1900: Australians in
the Boer War: Circumstances Surrounding the Siege of
Elands River Post, AMHP, NSW, 2000 (first published
1992)
Wallace, Robert L, The Australians at the Boer War,
Australian War Memorial and Australian Government
Printing Service, Canberra, 1976
Wilcox, Craig Australia’s Boer War, Oxford University
Press, South Melbourne Vic, 2002
Miss C M Frater
1708 Old Bruce Highway
Raglan Qld 4697
Australia
[email protected]
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