The Nurses’ General Dame Maud McCarthy

Dame Maud McCarthy was Matron-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, 1914-1919, and had charge of many thousands of nurses and VADs from many nations.

Maud McCarthy helped bring up 10 brothers and sisters in Sydney, gave up her own chance to attend Sydney University, and came to England when she was 30. She undertook nursing training at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, at the time of its great reforms under Matron Eva Luckes and Sidney Holland, became a Sister, and was selected to serve, with distinction, in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902.

On her return she was rapidly promoted to senior posts as Matron of large Army hospitals and became Principal Matron at the War Office in 1910. With the outbreak of war in August 1914 she was summoned to duty in France and Flanders and shortly afterwards appointed Matron-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force.

She arrived in France in charge of some 500 nurses, with a tiny staff. By 1918 she was marshalling over 8,000 nurses and VADs from Britain, Australia, Canada, the Dominions and America, and was responsible for all the nursing operations in the field, through the German Advance and retreat of 1918, the Armistice, and the great flu epidemic of 1919.

She was always in the field, inspecting hospitals and Casualty Clearing Stations. Her contemporaries marvelled at her administrative ability, tireless, dedicated hard work, attention to detail, and support for her nurses.

She was highly decorated, and after the war went on to be Matron-in-Chief of the Territorial Army Nursing Service. When she left France in 1919, her nurses filled her cabin with flowers and sang “For she’s a jolly good fellow” on the quayside. For many years afterwards she would be stopped and thanked by grateful soldiers and former patients in the street.