Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Sarah was the fourth of nine children of Joseph and Sarah Varcoe. Family and friends knew Sarah as “Dorothy” or “Dot”.  She began her nursing training in 1900, as a probationer at the Hillston District Hospital and completed it at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.

Sarah was one of over 300 nurses to apply by November 1914.  She and 44 other NSW nurses were accepted for the 2nd Australian General Hospital (2AGH).   They sailed from Sydney on 28 November 1914 aboard the Kyarra.   When the Kyarra reached Egypt in mid-January 1915, the nurses made their way from Alexandria to their assigned hospitals.  The 2AGH was set up at Mena House, a hotel turned into a hospital of 600 beds at the foot of the Pyramids outside Cairo.  
 
The nurses had to supply their own uniforms from a £15 allowance and pay for their rooms, laundry and food.  This caused considerable unhappiness, particularly since their pay was less than they were charged, and in mid-February 1915, they had still not been paid at all.  The unhappiness escalated when, in March, Sarah and five others, including Sister Bessie Pocock, were sent to the hospital at Abbassia, and billeted at the 1st AGH in Heliopolis. They had to provide their own cups, plates and knives. Often when they returned from the camp for meals, there was practically nothing left.  Sarah and a few other nurses wrote asking the O.C. to allow them 3/6d instead of 2/6d per day.
 
It was not all discomfort and hard work.  Between shifts, the nurses visited the Pyramids and Cairo.  On 5 March 1915, Bessie Pocock made a diary entry about a trip with Sarah to the bazaars “then to see the mosque of a Sultan's wife. ... We were passed off as officer's wives so we got in for 1 Piastre ... Otherwise we would have to pay double.  Officers, their wives and soldiers get in half price. The poor nursing sisters pay full.”
 
In early May, Sarah left Abbassia for the Gizerah Palace, where 2AGH had relocated, to run an acute surgical ward for wounded soldiers from the Gallipoli landing, with 500 arriving in the space of three days. 
 
A few weeks later, on 5 July 1915, Sarah embarked on the HMAT Ballarat, returning wounded soldiers to Australia. One of the soldiers was her cousin, Bertram Varcoe, who had been injured at Gallipoli, just three days before his brother was killed there.  It is likely coincidence Sarah and Bertram found themselves on the same voyage. Nursing staff were selected for transport ships at short notice and according to whoever was available. Sister Alice Ross-King, who boarded a day earlier described the arrival of Sarah and other nurses: “… the four were the most uninteresting & elderly girls one could strike in a bunch.  I am relieved because now the nursing will take first place instead of the flirting.”
 
In Australia, reports of Red Cross mismanagement in Egypt filled the newspapers, after Colonel John Springthorpe accused the organisation of selling off donated clothing and claimed, “some returning soldiers [on the Ballarat] received 2 cardigans while others none, and there was a lack of pyjamas, flannel shirts & dressing gowns”.  Sarah and Sisters Weigall and Gibbings gave interviews. “We bless the Red Cross every day”, Sylvia Weigall told one reporter.  Sarah told the Sydney Morning Herald, “I asked Matron Gould … what I was to say if, on my return to Australia, the Red Cross people asked me if the things they were sending were all right. She replied “Quite all right. But you can tell them that the flannel pyjamas and shirts you are sending are rather heavy for Egypt.””
 
Sarah returned to Egypt aboard the HMAT Argyllshire in September 1915. She was promoted to Nursing Sister in December. Patient numbers at Ghezireh reached a peak of 1010 on 25 January 1916, many with respiratory illnesses.  A few days later, Sarah was herself admitted to the hospital, with “well marked pharyngitis”. She stayed in the hospital for just over a week before returning to duty.
 
The 2AGH nurses sailed to France in early April to establish an evacuation hospital in Wimereux. While the hospital was being set up, 50 nurses were detached and sent to support British hospitals, including Sarah, to the 26thGeneral Hospital at Étaples for three weeks, nursing soldiers wounded in the Somme offensive.
 
The strain of war and nursing wounded and dying soldiers was taking its toll on Sarah. The work was relentless, with wards filling and emptying up to three times in each
24-hour period, as men were treated and sent on to ships. Adding to her stress, another of her cousins had been killed in action, and now her younger brother, Joseph, was fighting at the Western Front.  On 10 October 1916 she reported in sick. Two days later, she was admitted to hospital with “stress and strain” caused by “strenuous work” and on 18 October evacuated to London, exhausted with anaemia and an irregular heartbeat.  In March 1917, Sarah sailed home to Australia and to hospital in Sydney.
 
A year after she became ill, and just days after her brother Joseph was killed in France on 12 October 1917, Sarah was declared permanently incapacitated and discharged to recover in Gunbar. Eventually, Sarah resumed her nursing career, becoming matron of the first maternity hospital in Hay, NSW.  In 1930, she married William Beck, who she met on the Argyllshire when travelling back to Egypt 15 years earlier.
 
Sarah died in 1959.  Her name appears with those of her brothers, and sister, Annie, on the Presbyterian Church Honour Board in Gunbar.

Daughter of Joseph Rowe and Sarah Jane (nee NIXON) VARCOE of 'Hopefield', Gunbar, New South Wales.

Sister of

• Benjamin VARCOE (born 1875)
• Amy VARCOE (born 1879)
• 2004A Private Joseph VARCOE - 35th Battalion, killed in action Passchendaele, Ypres Belgium 12th October 1917 (born1881)
• AANS Sister Annie VARCOE - Australian Army Nursing Service, returned to Australia 25th January 1920 (born 1883)
• Mabel E VARCOE (born 1887) Married Alexander McArthur 24th October 1925.
• 6170 Private John Thomas VARCOE - 35th Battalion. wounded and returned to Australia 12th February 1918 (born 1889)

There died in the Hillston District Hospital on Friday last an outstanding personality of the district, when Capt.
William Beck was called to the Great Beyond after a short illness, the cause of death being heart failure. Born at Bega 64 years ago, William Beck took a keen interest in military matters, and he saw active service in the South African war, sailing from Australia with the Bushmen's Contingent with the rank of Sergeant. At the conclusion of that war the late Mr Beck returned to Australia, continuing his activity in the militia. He was chosen as one of the 40 men from New South Wales to attend the coronation of King' Edward VII. At the outbreak of the World War Mr Beck again offered his services to his country, and in 1915 sailed with 4th Reinforcement 12th Light Horse with the rank of Lieutenant. When an uprising occurred among native troops Lieutenant Beck was appointed Captain and placed in charge of a column of men to proceed to Egypt to quel the disturbance. He continued on active service till the end of 1917, when he was invalided to Australia. About 10 years ago he married at Glenfield, Miss Sarah Varcoe, and soon after they took up land in the Hillston district following farming and grazing pursuits. There was no family to the union. Miss Varcoe was a nurse in the Great War, and she left Australia in the same troopship as her late husband in 1915; Mr J, G. Rose being also a member of the contingent on that ship. The cortege, a very lengthy one, moved from the Catholic Church on Saturday afternoon for Hillston cemetery. The casket, draped with the Union Jack, was carried by returned soldiers, who formed a guard of honor at the church and cemetery. Service at the graveside was conducted by Rev Father O'Sullivan; funeral arrangements being carried out by Messrs J, Trenerry and Sons, Griffith Major Dooley, of Leeton, a soldier comrade of deceased during the South African war and also closely associated in the Great War, was present at the funeral to pay his last respect to a soldier comrade of nearly a lifetime.

The Hillston Spectator and Lachlan River Advertiser Thursday 30 May 1940 page 2