Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Rose Lena SHAPPERE was born in Ballarat in 1859

Her parents were Solomon SHAPPERE and Catherine ASHER who married in 1850 in Birmingham, England

She embarked with 9 other Victorian nurses to serve in the Boer War on 10th March, 1900 on the ship Euryalus with the 3rd Victorian Bushmens Contingent - she was awarded the Royal Red Cross plus 4 clasps

She married Edmund Julius ELKAN in 1908 and died in South Yarra, Victoria in 1943 - aged 84 years & was cremated at Springvale Botanical Cemetery

TRANSVAAL WAR
WHAT NURSING WAS LIKE IN LADYSMITH
Sister Shappere, who was, or claims to be, the first Australian nurse at the front - she says she went straight from a nursing establishment in Adelaide - is now in London (writes the S.D. Telegraph's London correspondent, June 8), having come from South Africa as superintendent of the Transport Tagus.
Sister Shappere landed at the Cape last June, meaning, as she remarked to an interviewer, to be in time to see the whole thing through from the beginning. Her first journey was to Stanthrton and thence she repaired to Johannesburg. There she met Captain Eloff, Kruger's much beloved grandson, who told her that if she would only stop and nurse the Boers he would give her an entirely free hand to do just as she pleased. But the sister went on to Delagoa Bay, and thence to Ladysmith. Concerning her experiences there she says:-
"I really never shall know how we nurses ever managed to come out of the siege alive. I never realised before that the human frame could stand so much. In the first place, the military hospital camp at Intombi was grossly mismanaged. Everything was to our disadvantage. We went there by arrangement with the Boers on November 4, and from that date to the end of the siege was one nightmare." "But surely," asked a Leader representative, 'you were safer there than in the town?" "Ah, you're thinking of the shells. We didn't have a lot of them - they generally flew over our heads, seeking bigger game. Besides, we had some Boer prisoners, you know. No, I didn't mean the shells. I was speaking of the terrible hardships that had to be borne by everyone in Intombi camp. I've seen - oh, I really can't tell you anything like a proportion of the horrors we had to endure. Everything seemed to go wrong. When food began to run short the difficulties increased tenfold. I couldn't trust my orderly, who would steal my patient's food on the first opportunity.
"Towards the end the strain grew unbearable. Many and many a time have I gone on duty at 6 in the morning ,to leave off at 11 at night, with the same programme next day. Many and many a time have we all bee compelled to go into the enteric wards without so much as a cup of tea; while our beds - well, I've gone in soaked through and through and fagged out, to find my bed soaking as well. Again, the cooking - I wonder we ever did any. No sooner would a fire be lighted than down would come the teeming rain, absolutely deluging everything. And through all this the most awful food. For the last month this was our daily portion : One and a half mealie biscuits, or half a pound of mealic bread; 1 oz of brown, or rather black sugar; one-sixth of an ounce of tea or coffee - this last consisting of the mealie biscuits ground down."
Miss Shappere gave the Leader representative some of the biscuits to try. Beyond having a distinct flavour of the ages it seemed like a piece of well-seasoned wood. Asked for an opinion of Mr. Treve's remarks upon the plague of women at the hospitals :-
"Society women !!! Oh, yes!" said Miss Shappere, speaking very grimly and deliberately. "Dr. Treves was perfectly right there. I don't think I've ever seen a more unedifying spectacle than these ladies coming out, in quite a holiday spirit, with a wardrobe of new dresses, and thoroughly prepared to have a downright good time. What I can't make out is why they were allowed to come at all, hindering good work, and getting terribly in the way. I daren't tell you some of the things I've heard about them. Ii can say this, however, that they think the duty of nursing, or rather fashionable nursing as it should be styled, consists in smoothing the sufferers' pillows and bathing his forehead with a little scent."

Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser Saturday 21 July 1900 page 4

RETURN OF SISTER ROSALIND SHAPPERE.
A DISTINGUISHED AUSTRALIAN NURSE
GAZETTED FOR THE " ROYAL RED CROSS "

Sister Rosalind Shappere, one of the nursing staff from Australia in South Africa, returned to Sydney from Melbourne by the steamer Warrigal on Monday. Nurse Shappere, who was the first English nurse at the front, has spent over two and a half years in connection with nursing sick and wounded British and Boer soldiers, has had an unusual experience, and has received distinctions of various kinds. In a chat with a "Herald" reporter yesterday Nurse Shappere said that just before the war broke out in South Africa she was engaged us a nurse in the Adelaide Hospital, and at the time of the trouble at that institution she left and proceeded to South Africa, landing at Durban. She then left for Johannesburg, where she joined the St. John Ambulance, being the first English nurse there. The camp was supposed to be a neutral one—to treat both the British and the Boers—but she subsequently found that such was not the case, and that it was for the Boers. She thereupon left, and subsequently organised the hospitals at Standerton, where the nurses had to make the sheets, bedding, &c.—in addition to what they were able to commandeer.

Having completed her organising work at Standerton, she left by tram for Delagoa Bay, and saw various parts of the railway lines en route which had been torn up by the Boers. Whilst travelling by train the Boers shelled the train, but she fortunately escaped without being injured, although the shells came within a few feet of where she was. At the time she went to Delagoa Bay there had been seven days of continuous rain, and the place was literally flooded. Men were to be seen lying in pools of water in the streets with no shelter whatever. She returned to Durban just previous to the battle of Dundee. For a considerable portion of the time she was stationed at Intombi, five miles from Ladysmith, where from 10,000 to 12,000 sick and wounded were attended to.

During her long stay at the war she also served as a nurse in the hospitals at Winberg, Bloemfontein, and Elandsfontein, in addition to the transport and hospital ships Assaye and Avoca. Nurse Shappere returned to England from South Africa upon three occasions as superintending nurse in charge of invalids, and also visited Melbourne and returned to the war with the Fifth Contingent. During her stay in South Africa she met Lord Roberts, Generals Knox, Cleary, Sir George Grey, Brocklehurst, and Baden-Powell, and obtained photographs bearing the autograph of each. She was gazetted by Sir George Grey to receive the Royal Red Cross honour, and also received a command to attend before his Majesty the King to receive a medal in recognition of the services she had rendered. At the time that the command from his Majesty reached South Africa, Nurse Shappere was at sea, and in consequence could not obey it.

Nurse Shappere was the only Australian nurse present at the siege of Ladysmith. In reply to a question Nurse Shappere said the nurses were well treated by the officers, but the English nurses at the front were very jealous of the colonial nurses, who had a wider experience in the treatment of sick and wounded than the English. Nurse Shappere said she had been informed that she was to receive four clasps, in recognition of having nursed the sick and wounded in four separate States in South Africa. She proposes to return to return to Johannesburg after spending a few days with her relatives in Sydney. 

Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 19 June 1902, p. 5.