Emily Grace Chappell

Working on a hospital ship was extremely tiring due to the incessant heat. Some ships were so badly ventilated that, every four hours they had to turn right round in a circle to provide relief to those on board. The patients were often in a frightful condition often suffering from dysentery, cholera, malaria, paratyphoid and heat exhaustion. And then of course, there was the inevitable sea sickness which afflicted patient and carer alike.

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Of the one million Indian soldiers who served under the British in World War one, 74,000 died with tens of thousands injured. The Indian Government unable to cope with the number of casualties, in May 1916, cabled Australia for help requesting 50 lady nurses for employment in British War Hospitals at Bombay. Fifty nurses were despatched from Egypt. In early August 1916, the Indian Government cabled the Australian government again asking for 50 nurses to be supplied immediately and then another 50 a month later. Eventually around 560 AANS nurses, mostly from Victoria served in India between 1916 and 1919.

The SS Mooltan departed from Melbourne on Boxing Day 1916; on board were two ODH trained nurses, Emily Chappell and Flora Melville. Several days after their departure, the newspapers of the day were accusing the war office of meanness:

WAR OFFICE MEANNESS

A score or two of nurses have just been sent away by the Defence Department to India where they will stay for six months or so, and then move on to England. These ladies rank as lieutenants but get less pay than privates, their remuneration being 5/3 per day and 2/6 allowance, which all goes for board. In days when cooks in small families turn up their noses at 40/ a week plus board and lodgings, this pay for trained nurses does not seem great.

They are instructed never to travel second class, and when at theatres to go into the more expensive parts of the house, since, to do otherwise would be lowering the dignity of the rank they nominally possess.

What is worse is that although at the beck and call of the authorities, these young. women, all of whom have had to pass examinations and undergo severe training, are sometimes put off for a week or two at their own expense. Quite a number of them who have been selected to go abroad were told that there were too many nurses available, and that for economy’s sake they must take a fortnight's holiday without pay. In other words, they were fined £5/10 or so at a time when they were getting ready to go abroad to do their duty, and in fact, needed extra money. Many of them have had to forego pay for the few days of their final leave, and what is more, to pay their travelling expenses when going to bid farewell to their friends.

Every fat armchair general and lieutenant-colonel, who draws a large salary for infesting the barracks, insists on a special motor car being sent to his private residence for him, every morning, while the party in power sees nothing in giving 5/3 a day extra out of the farmers' wheat money to lumpers, who insist not only in being paid travelling expenses to their work, but also for the time they consume in the journey. Their pay has now touched we are told, 31/9 for a night's work, while. the nurse gets sixth of that amount. Surely something can be done by one of the three War Ministers Australia possesses to alter these anomalies. The Ararat Advertiser and Chronicle for the Stawell and Wimmera Districts, 30 December 1916.

After arriving in Bombay in January 1917, Emily was temporarily posted to the 600 bed Cumballa War Hospital. Of the Cumballa, Sister Gertrude Moberly, wrote:

Cumballa War Hospital is a huge place. There are 11 AANS Sisters here and I do not know how many English Army Sisters. The Matron … doesn’t understand our Australian freedom. She is Irish and awfully nice but oh, so strict, and the rules here are too absurd for words. Fancy trained women having to be in at 8.15 p.m. – that is the hour we dine. One must have special permission to stay out later than that.

Emily spent almost twelve months on the Ellora before being posted to the 600 bed Victoria War Hospital at Bombay. The hospital was originally the offices of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway but had been commandeered by the British and converted to a hospital. As the hospital was close to the docks it received the most serious cases including British prisoners of war and Turkish prisoners of war. Nursing in India under trying conditions and with long hours, 7.30 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. with three hours off every other day was not easy but the nurses did, however, relish the opportunity to expand their knowledge and competence in treating patients with beriberi, dysentery and typhoid.

In early January 1919 Emily, after disembarking at Southampton, England enjoyed a month’s furlough with her Welsh relatives in Cardiff. On her return to London, she was posted to the 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital (AAH) at Dartford in England. This 1400 bed hospital specialized in the treatment of war-related nervous conditions and neuroses.

Along with Australian nurses and invalided troops, Emily boarded the steamer, the Czar in late March 1919 bound for Australia. However, at Alexandria, Egypt, they embarked on the Dongola and arrived home in Melbourne on 16 May. Unlike the soldiers, the nurses were expected to work their passage home.

Her appointment with the AIF was terminated in July 1919 but reinstated in October 1919. This was most likely to due to the fact that whilst overseas Emily contracted malaria and was still being treated for it as an outpatient in September 1920 at the No. 11 AGH.

The Chappell family story is that Emily never fully recovered her health and did not work again after her return home.  She never married but was fondly remembered by her family as someone who was gentle and caring and would be the first to offer assistance with the care of a newborn or a sick family member.

Emily died, not long after her seventy-first birthday, on 16 June 1960 at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital and was buried at the Burwood cemetery.

©Anne Hanson, 2023                                             E-mail:  Anne Hanson