Connection to the Hunter Valley – Staff Nurse Ethel Newby was born in Taree and was living in Cundletown when she enlisted.  She is buried in Dawson River General Cemetery, Taree.

Training and experience – Ethel trained at Sydney Hospital and passed the examination for membership of the ATNA in June 1912, as an obstetric nurse.

Service – Australian  Army Nursing Service (AANS)

Service location – Ethel embarked from Sydney on 18 October 1918 on the Wyreema.  The vessel was bound for Salonika but was recalled due to the end of hostilities on the Salonika front.  Ethel disembarked at Fremantle on the return journey and served at the Quarantine Station at Woodman’s Point, nursing returned soldiers suffering from influenza.  She was one of a number of nurses who became ill with the virus themselves.

Medals, awards and mentions – British War Medal

References:

National Archives of Australia B2455 NEWBY ETHEL RACHEL

Embarkation Roll of the First AIF Australian War Memorial AWM Nurses (July 1915 – November 1918)

Sydney Morning Herald, 29 June 1912

Ruth Rae, Veiled Lives:  threading Australian nursing history into the fabric of the First World War, The College of Nursing, Burwood NSW, 2009

Do you know more?

© Christine Bramble 2013