Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Father John Campbell and mother Elizabeth (nee Bridges), living at Kilburnie Street, Gladstone, Queensland.

Eldest of twin daughters born in 1888 at Ironbark homestead, built by their father, in outback Queensland.

Beryl had six older siblings. (Sisters Ruby, May and Alice )

In 1902 Beryl and her twin sister went to Rockhampton boarding school, but only for a year, as their mother decided to continue their education at home on the station with a governess.

1911  Beryl was registered as a trained Nurse at Rockhampton Hospital.

1912  then in obstetrics at Queens House in Adelaide, South Australia.

1912-14      Head Nurse at Rockhampton's Children's Hospital; then
                  Matron of the Marmur Nursing Association in rural Queensland

Next of kin in service:
Brother: 2635 John Gordon Leslie CAMPBELL
               5th Light Horse Regiment
               28/6/1919  returned to Australia

Described on embarkation roll as 25 years old; single; 5' 5" tall; blonde complexion;
blue eyes; fair hair; Protestant

12/11/1914  Enlisted in the AIF, with the Australian Army Nurses

21/12/1914  Beryl sailed with the second continguent of Australian nurses from Brisbane
                  on board the HMAT Kyarra A55, as a Staff Nurse, with the 1st Australian
                  General Hospital (AGH)
                  based in the Helioplos Palace Hotel in Cairo, Egypt.

12/12/1915  Promoted to Sister - duty in England

24/2/1916    Mild case of Chicken-Pox, admitted 4th Auxillary Hospital

8/8/1916     Embarked on SS A14 Euripedes

1/12/1916    Quarantined in Hospital on Salisbury Island - very serious
8/12/1916    progressing satisfactory - marked improvement

30/12/1916  disembarked into Durban on board HMAT A74 Marathon
                   suffering from CSM

8/1/1917      Convalescent, Capetown, South Africa

9/3/1917      Returned to Australia on board HMAT A71 Nestor, invalided, from Durban,
                   South Africa

22/4/1917    Returned to duty - 1st MD

12/6/1917   Embarked from Port Melbourne on board RMS Mooltan
19/7/1917   Suez, Egypt

Noted as luckily missing death a second time (the first from Chicken Pox), as the
Mooltan was torpedoed the following day.

12/8/1917   Embarked Suez on board Os Montes for Salonica

A six month tour of duty there until January 1918.

June 1917    Appointed Matron at the Salonica, on the east coast of Greece
                  as one of three Senior Matrons leading a contingent of 215 Australian Nurses

July 1917    Under the direction of the Australian Principal Matron Jessie McHardie-White.
                  Matron Campbell and her 90 Australians took over the 50th British General Hospital
                 (50 BGH), a 1200 - bed hospital at Kalamaria.
                  It was a relatively well - established hospital of wooden huts for patients and staff,
                  unlike a second tent hospital at Hortiach, some twenty miles away, where the canvas
                  tents were regularly blown down by the ferocious Vardar wind, which, Butler wrote:
                  ‘Exceeded in bitterness and fury anything experienced in France.’

Despite the better accommodation, at 50 BGH Matron Campbell was still confronted with the same appalling weather, scarcity of food, lack of fresh water and pernicious malaria that debilitated the nursing staff at all the Salonica hospitals.

2/1/1918     Proceeding to Egypt
2/3/1918     returned to Salonica

Three months later, on 3/6/1918, in the London Gazette, Beryl was awarded the prestigious Royal Red Cross (1st Class) (RRC).

The RRC was awarded in recognition of valuable services with British Forces in Salonica.
(Sister Christense Sorensen, AANS, 60th British General Hospital, Salonica, was awarded
the Royal Red Cross (2nd Class).

For the next twelve months from March 1918 to February 1919 Matron Campbell remained in Salonica. She was among the last to leave, remaining until March 1919, well after the war had ended, overseeing the departure of the wounded and of her nurses for England.

30/3-23/4/1919  admitted sick to 12th Southmil General, South Kensington

19/5-19/8/1919  Granted leave
Beryl Campbell’s record notes she was granted leave for non-military employment in London in May 1919 to complete a motor course in London, not a career option selected by many demobilising nurses, and a hint of a different future.

18/9/1919   Matron Campbell passed her course in motor mechanics and driving.

Then in June 1919 everything changed. Family and female responsibilities suddenly took precedence over all else, and she was discharged from the AANS to sail to Canada.  Sadly her sister and brother-in-law had died in the Influenza pandemic in 1918 in Alsack, Saskatchewan, Canada, leaving Beryl's four neices and nephews (aged 11 months; , 5 & 6 years old) orphaned.

21/7/1919  Awarded French Medaille Des Epidemies, Gold, noted in the London Gazette.

17/9/1919  Embarked for Montreal Canada, en route for Australia, ex Liverpool, England.

Returning to Australia with the children, civilian life brought marriage, motherhood and then widowhood in suburban Melbourne.

5/12/1919   Discharged from service

Her surviving appointment diary for the last year of her life in 1962 records ‘Salonica reunion’ as a significant event, witness to a time she valued.

Beryl Campbell’s life in the AANS was in many ways no different from the lives of her contemporaries in that service, and her leadership no more exceptional than that of other matrons. The difference is that her small story, ‘really rather extraordinary’ in its own way, has not so far been told.

Medals:
1914-15 Star (29274); British War Medal (77729); Victory Medal (64660);

Royal Red Cross (1st Class) - delivered to her father in QLD; 

French Medaille Des Epidemies, Gold

Sourced and submitted by Julianne T Ryan.  4/3/2015.  Lest we forget.

Beryl married on 22.6.1921 in Queensland to George Harold Walker.

Beryl passed away on 12.11.1962. Her remains were cremated at Springvale Botanical Cemetery on 14.11.1962 and collected. The remains were then buried with those of her husband who had pre-deceased her at Boroondara General Cemetery on 26.2.1963.