A scarce Inter-War R.R.C. group of four awarded to Senior Nursing Sister Ethel Kelso, Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service for India, who later served in her early 70s as a Lady Ambulance Driver on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

Royal Red Cross, 1st Class (R.R.C.), G.V.R., silver-gilt, gold, and enamel, on lady’s bow riband; 1914 Star (Nursing Sister E. Kelso, Q.A.M.N.S.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Nursing Sister E. Kelso.) good very fine (4) £600-£800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

View
Collection

One of only twelve 1914 Stars awarded to nurses of the Indian Service.

R.R.C. London Gazette 31 December 1921.

M.I.D. London Gazette 22 June 1915.

Ethel Kelso was born in Trimulgherry, India, on 8 October 1873, the daughter of Lieutenant John Andrew Kelso of the Royal Artillery, who was shortly afterwards killed in action at the Siege of Peiwar Kotal on 2 December 1878. Educated in Bath at the School for Daughters of the Officers of the Army, she trained as a nurse at Charing Cross Hospital from 1899 to 1902 and remained on the staff as Sister in a male medical ward until 24 January 1904.

Interviewed on 3 February 1904 for the Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service for India, she soon found herself bound for Secunderabad aboard the Moldavia. Appointed Nursing Sister, she transferred to Meerut in January 1908 and Ranikhet in July 1908, followed by postings at Mhow and Rawalpindi. On the outbreak of the Great War she was selected as one of 17 Indian Service nurses to go to France, nursing in Marseilles at the Rawalpindi British General Hospital from October 1914. Relocated with the hospital to Wimereux, she was Mentioned in Despatches by Sir John French before returning home to India on 13 December 1915.

Taking appointment at Poona in 1916 and Nowshere in April 1918, Kelso was raised Senior Nursing Sister at Mhow on 10 May 1920. A short while later she retired and was awarded the R.R.C., which she received from the King himself at Buckingham Palace on 9 February 1922. Settling in south-west Cornwall, Kelso later served from 15 June 1942 to 9 January 1946 as an Ambulance Officer with the Mullion Nursing Division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade; despite the idyllic coastal setting, her life was likely extremely busy with large numbers of air force personnel stationed in her home village and thousands of American G.I.s making preparations for the D-Day landings at Trebah Gardens.

Sold with a fine Charing Cross Hospital nursing badge, engraved ‘Ethel Kelso. Dec. 1902.’ to reverse, with copied research.