Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Ethel Brice BUTLER ARRC Staff Nurse Australian Army Nursing Service

Edith Butler was born on 17th February 1881, one of ten children in the pioneering Butler family of Kilcoy. She may have attended school in Kilcoy before taking up nursing as a career. In the case of Ethel, she probably trained at either the Royal Brisbane, the Diamantina (Renamed Princess Alexandra) at South Brisbane or Ipswich Hospitals. Training took several years and nurses often lived in.

When Ethel presented herself for enlistment in the First World War on 11th November 1914, she was 33 years old and named her mother of Kilcoy as her next of kin. She stated her occupation as nurse and masseuse. Ethel was accepted as a staff nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service with a pay rate of five pounds a month. The AANS was part of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Some Australian nurses also joined the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service which was based in England but to do so volunteers had to pay for their own passage to London.

Ethel was assigned to the nursing staff of the 1st Australian General Hospital and embarked on the “Kyarra” in Brisbane on 21st December 1914. Upon arrival in Egypt, the 1st AGH was established in a former hotel at Heliopolis. This hospital would be the primary hospital for men evacuated wounded from Gallipoli during the latter half of 1915.

On 1st December 1915, Ethel was promoted from Staff Nurse to Sister. As the Gallipoli force was withdrawn to Egypt in December and January, the work of the 1st AGH increased. On 10th January 1916, Sister Ethel Butler was awarded the Royal Red Cross Award (2nd Class) which entitled her to have the letters ARRC after her name. The Red Cross Award had been instituted by Queen Victoria as a military award acknowledging devotion to duty. The first recipient of the award was Florence Nightingale.

Sometime in early 1916, Ethel’s situation changed. It is possible that the declining health of her father required her attention. Ethel’s file records that she was struck off the strength of the 1st AGH with the approval of the Director of Medical Services. She boarded a ship in Suez on 19th March 1916 and returned to Australia. Ethel’s parents had left Kilcoy Station in about 1912 to reside at Sandgate. Her mother had died in July 1915 and there is some evidence that William Butler returned to Kilcoy to see out his days under the care of his daughter. William Butler died in 1917.

With both of her parents now deceased, Ethel had fulfilled her duty to the family and she was able to resume her career. On 8th November 1917, she re-enlisted in the AANS and eight days later embarked for overseas in Sydney on the S.S.Canberra. Ethel had resumed her rank of Sister but instead of being posted to the large Australian Hospitals in France and England, she was assigned to the King George War Hospital in Poona, India. During the voyage, Ethel was made temporary Matron of the ship.

The Poona Hospital was primarily concerned with treating men from the Indian Army (many of whom were expatriate British servicemen) who had bee repatriated from English Hospitals. On 3rd June, Ethel was finally presented with her Royal Red Cross Medal, a silver and red enamelled cross on a red and sky blue ribbon in the form of a bow. The Australian War memorial has in its collection a number of photographs of staff and patients at Poona which are part of Ethel Butler’s collection.

At the signing of the armistice, it would have been most likely that Ethel would return to Australia but in fact on 18th November 1918 she boarded a ship in Bombay bound for England where she arrived at Southampton on 6th January 1919.

Ethel was originally posted to Southall Military Hospital but then transferred to the St Albans Hospital. As a member of the AIF, Ethel was entitled to be afforded the privilege of what was termed Non Military Employment; a scheme which allowed service personnel to attend courses or acquire skills which might assist them in civilian employment. Ethel was granted leave with pay of 10 shillings and 4 pence a day to attend Mansions Motor Training Garage in Westminster where she no doubt learnt to drive and perform basic mechanics. She also was granted leave to attend to “business” but the army did not pay her during this period.

Ethel returned to Australia and was discharged on 20th October 1919. She presumably returned to her chosen career of nursing. The final entry in Ethel’s file is a claim for repatriation benefits in 1938. She was 57 years old.