Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Sister Helen M. Westwater, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

1914-15 Star (Sister H. M. Westwater. Q.A.I.M.N.S.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Sister H. M. Westwater) all in named card boxes of issue, extremely fine (3) £240-280

Helen Mackenzie Westwater served during the Great War with Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, on H.M. Hospital Ship Oxfordshire, engaged in ferrying wounded from the battlefields of the Western front back to England. She undertook her first voyage in her on 7 October 1914, from St. Nazaire to Southampton, carrying 6 wounded officers and 455 men, and over the next twelve months undertook 48 voyages, the vast majority from either Boulogne or Le Harve to Southampton, carrying a total of 28,906 wounded officers and men back home.

In November 1915 she went with the Oxfordshire to the Dardanelles and served in the evacuation of Gallipoli, before leaving the Oxfordshire on 7 December of that year and serving for the next two years at The Citadel Hospital, Cairo. Arriving back at Southampton on 7 June 1918, she was next employed at Fango Military Hospital, before resigning her commission on 1 October 1918. She was subsequently employed as a nurse at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire.

Sold together with the recipient’s College of Nursing Registration Certificate, dated 28 June 1919, and accompanying letter, dated 20 June 1919; hand-written list of the voyages that the recipient took in H.M. Hospital Ship Oxfordshire; a postcard sent to the recipient; and a portrait photograph of the recipient.