Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Memorial Plaque to Miss Mary Macgill, Matron of the Military Isolation Hospital, Aldershot

Memorial Plaque 1914-18, ‘She Died for Freedom and Honor’ (Mary Macgill) good very fine £1600-2000

Matron Mary Mitchell Macgill, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, died on 11 March 1915, aged 32 years. She was buried in Aldershot Military Cemetery.

An entry in The British Journal of Nursing, 20 March 1915, reads, ‘We greatly regret that the dread disease, cerebro-spinal meningitis has claimed another member of the nursing profession as its victim. Miss Mary Macgill, Matron of the Military Isolation Hospital, Aldershot, has succumbed to the disease which she has done so much to combat in those under her charge. She has been working devotedly for very long hours since the war broke out, and her over-taxed system could not resist the infection to which she was exposed. She was buried with military honours, and our picture shows the coffin on the gun carriage covered with the Union Jack’ (picture not with lot). In addition to her grave, her name was also commemorated on the memorial to Scottish nurses at St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. There she is listed as Matron Mary Macgill of the Military Families Nursing Service. With copied research.