Connection to the Hunter Valley– Sister Amy Holloway Mathews was born in Newcastle and is named on the honour roll of Tighes Hill Public School and Gregson Park Memorial Hamilton.

Training and experience – Amy trained at Newcastle Hospital and passed the examination for membership of the Australasian Trained Nurses’ Assocation in December 1908. Worked at David Berry Hospital (Berry, NSW) and in private nursing before the War.

Service – Australian  Army Nursing Service (AANS)

Service location – Hospital Ship Karoola, France and UK. Amy also spent some time at least in Egypt between voyages on the Karoola.  Read about Amy’s war experiences in a casualty clearing station on the Western Front.

Medals – 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal

Amy married Fred Hooton in Sydney in 1919.  Fred was a dental surgeon who enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Corps in 1915.  He embarked on No 1 Australian Hospital Ship in 1915 – Amy’s ship – and it is hard to escape the conclusion that this is where he met Amy. A wartime romance!   In 1919 Amy provided an account of her war service as part of the research for the official medical history of Australia’s involvement in the War.  Click here to read an extract.

References:

National Archives of Australia B2455 MATHEWS AMY

Nominal Roll of the First AIF Australian War Memorial (AWM) 133, 33-131 (“Matthews”)

Embarkation Roll of the First AIF AWM 2 Australian General Hospital – 1 to 16 and Special Reinforcements (December 1914 – March 1916) [II]

AWM41/1072 (Interview with Matron Kellett)

Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December 1908, p.6 & 18 August 1919, p.9 retrieved from Trove 14 August 2012

Newcastle Morning Herald, 5 March 1917. p.6 (Sister “Matthews”)

Australasian Nurses’ Journal, Vol XIII No 4 April 1915, p.134, Vol XVIII No 2 February 1920, p.44

Do you know more?

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© Christine Bramble 2013