Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Daughter of James DORRINGTON and Julia nee MUGGE

Miss Louise Coles Dorrington, of Marrabel, South Australia, graduated at the Adelaide Children's Hospital, and was afterwards in the Adelaide Hospital, Wakefield-street. She was in England on holiday when war broke out, and although her passage was booked for return to Australia, she immediately volunteered for service with the British army nursing staff. She had an experience which is quite understandable to some of us. She received a reply from the matron in charge that only "British subjects" were being engaged, and as an Australian she was not eligible. She showed this letter to our then High Commissioner in London, the late Sir George Reid, who enjoyed the joke immensely. Through his agency she was invited by Sir Thos. Barclay to join the French Flag Nursing Corps for service in France, and had very wide and varied experience at Seine et Marne, Malabry, and Seine et Oise, and with the Tubercular Sanitorium for Servian {Serbian} students until September, 1919. She had already been associated with Miss Handley at different places, and they were together selected for service in Poland. They were among the first nurses to come to this country under Colonel Chesley, of the American Red Cross, to install the Carrell-Dakin wet-dressing antiseptic treatment of wounds. Miss Dorrington also has a number of distinctions. The "Citation" and "French Palm," "Reconnaissance," "Medaille d'Epidemie," "Servian {Serbian} Medal," American Red Cross Foreign Service Medal.

She desired to join up with the Australian Red Cross, but was unable to do so without, returning to Australia. She had never failed to declare herself as Australian, and said that she recognised she must always give of her very best for the credit of their native land, and this she was doing in a remarkable manner. When the American Red Cross decided to establish a first-class up-to-date hospital and training institution for nurses in connection with the University of Vilna, Major Black was put in charge of the enterprise, with Miss Handley as chief nurse and Miss Dorrington as assistant. In a week or two there will be accommodation ready for 100 patients, which will rapidly be extended to 300, and then 500 beds, and ultimately to 1000. All the arrangements have had to be carried out in a disorganised country, where ordinary trade stocks and materials have ceased to exist, and skilled artisans are very scarce. Yet it would be scarcely possible to find a better planned or equipped hospital with its pathological laboratory and facilities for scientific study in the centre of any progressive city.

Courtesy of Murray Connor

Australian Birth Index 
Name Louisa Dorrington
Birth Date 14 Jul. 1875
Birth Place Marrabel
Registration Place Gilbert, South Australia, Australia
Father James Dorrington
Mother Julia Mugge
Page number 467
Volume Number 153