Nurse Julia Mary Crosby

Julia was born to Walter Thomas & Ann Crosby nee Cameron in Armagh near Clare, South Australia on the 3^rd October 1876. She was a former resident of Port Pirie, South Australia where her mother still resided when the Great War broke out.

Fig.1 Sister Julia Mary Crosby AANS

Julia trained for 3 years in nursing at Adelaide General Hospital in South Australia; was a Sister at the Grosvenor Public Hospital in Fremantle, Western Australia and at the outbreak of war in 1914, she was serving as Matron at the Boulder City Hospital in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

She volunteered with the Australian Army Nursing Service on the 24^th May 1915 aged 38 and was attached to the 3^rd Australian General Hospital. She embarked overseas from Fremantle aboard the RMS Mooltan that had left Sydney on the 15^th May with units of the Australian Army Medical Corps.

Fig. 2 RMS Mooltan

Julia saw service in Egypt, Lemnos, England and France. She would have attended lectures, done first aid, paraded and attended field camps. 

All of this ill-prepared the nurses for the harsh conditions in a field hospital.

They were thrown into the deep end and they had to learn ‘on the job’ how to cope with shrapnel wounds, mustard gas, shell shock, frostbite, trench foot, dysentery, gangrene and all manner of surgical nursing. This was accompanied with strict military routines, nursing in tents and an extreme lack of food, supplies and equipment.

Fig.3 Australian Nursing Sisters aboard RMS Mooltan 1915
Julia ~ Back row far left

Nurses also had to escort convalescents to Egypt, England or Australia, they wrote letters home for ill soldiers and became adept at sourcing and scrounging supplies and extras for those that they cared for. Writing to Miss McEwen (Secretary of the Port Pirie Red Cross Society) from the 3rd Australian General Hospital in Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt, on February 15^th 1916, Julia writes…

“I received your letter on February 4^th, and the parcel of Red Cross goods on February 12^th. I cannot adequately express thanks for all the nice things you have sent to us. We are having cold, wet weather just now, and any useful things are most expensive. I think the people in the shops here imagine that they can charge Australians any price they like. We have been here three weeks.”

“Our home and the medical officers’ quarters formed at one time portion of a certain potentate's harem. Judging by the size of it he must have had more wives than Solomon. It has a great stone wall 30 ft. high all round, and when the huge heavy gates clang together at night and close us in we feel as if we were in gaol. When we were in tents, we were not very comfortable, especially on cold, windy days. However, we fared much better than our men. What a trying time they had at Anzac, and then what a disappointment it was to all of them to have to leave. It was so nice to be able to fit the boys out with good warm shirts, socks, scarfs, and so forth.”

Fig.4 Mention in Dispatches

In November 1918, Julia was ‘Mentioned in Dispatches’ by Sir Douglas Haig as a name deserving of special mention when she attached to No.2 General Hospital Julia returned to Australia on the 15^th May 1919 aboard the transport vessel Tras-os-Montes. She continued nursing as a Matron at Picton Lakes Settlement, New South Wales until her death on 10^th August 1941.

Source: The State Library of New South Wales

The Old Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company 
Virtual War Memorial Australia

Trove Australia: Register, Adelaide, SA Saturday 1 April 1916