Harriet May Jenkins

Born at Portland, south western Victoria in November 1901, Harriet was almost forty years old when she enlisted. Her age was possibly the reason, despite almost four years’ service with the AANS, why she was not posted overseas.

Harriet, the oldest child of Edwin McLaren Jenkins, a labourer and Margaret Ann Connery, was educated at All Saints School, Portland. She obtained her nursing certificate in January 1926 having undertaken training at both the Ovens District Hospital and the Portland Hospital.

In the years before the war, Harriet nursed at Portland, Ouyen and Casterton hospitals. She enlisted in February 1941 and for most of that year she was attached to the 29^th Australian Camp Hospital, (ACH) at Darley near Bacchus Marsh. Darley was an AIF training centre with a sixty-eight bed hospital.

Conditions in camp hospitals were difficult. Often there was no accommodation for nurses, hygiene was poor, medical and nursing equipment and supplies scarce and sometimes patients had to be treated under canvas or in converted unlined huts without proper heating. At the camp hospitals, nurses besides being responsible for patient care also took on the training of nursing orderlies.

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Greenslopes Military Hospital, December 1943.

In April 1942, Harriet was posted to a camp hospital at Geelong. Normally this was a precursor to being posted overseas but in 1943 she nursed for a few months at a camp hospital at Murchison. In October of that year she was promoted to Captain and attached to the 112^th AGH at Brisbane, also known as the Greenslopes military hospital. The 112^th was a 1,600 bed hospital with a staff of approximately 400 drawn from the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC), AANS, and Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD).

Greenslopes patients not only included the wounded but also those suffering from tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Immediately following the end of the war, the hospital worked at maximum capacity with some 900 staff caring for up to 1120 patients some of whom were prisoners-of-war who were malnourished and gravely ill.

After Harriet’s appointment as an army nurse was terminated in March 1946, she returned to south west Victoria, where she was appointed an infant welfare sister with the Shire of Portland. Under the heading, What’s Doing the Portland Guardian newspaper dated 2 November 1953 states ‘A weatherboard dwelling, at the corner- of Julia and Hurd streets, ... was privately bought by Sister Jenkins for £3000 ...’.

Harriet never married and died at Portland aged eighty-two in October 1983.

Sources

Harriet May Jenkins, Service Record Number V11124, National Archives Australia.