Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Three: Sister Helen Waddell, Territorial Force Nursing Service
1914-15 Star (S/Nurse H. Waddell T.F.N.S.); British War and Victory Medals (Sister H. Waddell) good very fine

Pair: Sergeant C. H. Watts, Army Service Corps
British War and Victory Medals (A-198997 A.Sjt. C. H. Watts. A.S.C.) good very fine (5) £300-360

Helen Waddell (also known as Helena or Helene), was born in Sunderland in 1878, and trained at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1909-1912. Whilst a probationer nurse she was one of approximately 126 Royal Victoria Infirmary nurses who received a silver cross which were presented to each nurse ‘…through the kindness of a very generous friend of the Institution’ to commemorate the coronation of George V and Queen Mary on June 23rd 1911 (R.V.I. Annual Report 1911 refers).

Following the outbreak of the Great War Helen Waddell joined Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service on 15 July 1915 and served with the Territorial Force Nursing Service as a Staff Nurse. She was sent to No. 16 General Hospital on 29 February 1916, and was appointed as acting sister on 17 March of that year. In September 1916 she transferred to No. 34 General Hospital, and then in April 1917 moved to No. 20 General Hospital, Abbeville. From Abbeville she was sent to Etaples along with 14 other Nursing Sisters to No. 44 Casualty Clearing Station; in a summary written by the Doctor in charge, in a ten day period from 16 to 26 September 1917 the Casualty Clearing Station had 383 Admissions, 221 Evacuations to a base hospital, had 122 deaths, performed 252 operations, and had 56 post-operative deaths, indicating how busy the unit was; on 27 September the unit was closed to admissions. She worked here for one month before she became sick and was invalided home from France in November 1917. She returned to No. 2 Stationary Hospital, Abbeville on 22 January 1918.
Following the Great War she continued to nurse in London, and died in London on 30 December 1949; probate was granted to her brother in law Cyril Watts, who had served in the Army Service Corps during the Great War.

Sold together with the recipient’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Coronation Cross 1911, silver, the obverse with Crown on upper arm, G[eorge] R[ex] M[ary] on other three arms, and date 1911 at centre, the lower arm of the reverse engraved ‘H.W.’; a Primrose League Warden’s Badge; an improvised identity tag fashioned from a French coin, the reverse engraved ‘A. Waddell. 686 Fulham Rd., London S.W.’; a Royal Air Force brooch pin; and various other ‘charms’.