Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Edith Ruth Cecil was born in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton in 1888, second youngest in the large family of Thomas William Cecil (c1840-1912) and his wife Mary (nee Roach) (1849-1908). Thomas had come to Victoria in 1853 on the 'Great Britain' aged 13 with his father and younger brother (both William), his mother and remaining siblings arriving in 1857 on the 'Hotspur'. In England, William the elder had been an ironmonger employing three men (UK 1851 census). He soon set up business as a tinsmith in King Street, Melbourne and seems also to have had a busines in Ballarat (Argus, 28.7.1870).

In 1866, Thomas Cecil married Mary, daughter of William Roach and his wife variously named in registration documents as Catherine McDonnell and Kate McDonald. Mary had been born in the young settlement of Melbourne in 1849.

At least four of Thomas and Mary's children were born in Ballarat between 1868 and 1873.

It appears that William Cecil the elder moved from Ballarat to Carlton around 1870-71 and that Thomas and Mary followed. Carlton was the birthplace of most of another eight children (possibly more) born to Thomas and Mary between 1875 and 1894.

The first 'public sightings' of Edith and her siblings came in 1901, in a report of a ceremony in the Potts Point convent of the Sisters of Charity (Sydney Morning Herald, 2.7.1901). Among the newly professed religious were Hilda Mary Cecil and Mary Justina [Cecil], two of Edith's elder sisters. (Sister Mary Xavier Fegan, blood sister of Katie Fegan who joined the Australian Army Nursing Service [AANS] several months before Edith, was also professed that day.)

By 1913-14, some members of the family at least can be traced through electoral rolls, service records and other public documents. Edith had trained as a nurse at St Vincent's Hospital, completing the hospital certificate in 1912 and the registration requirements of the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses Association in 1913. The electoral roll for 1914 list her (nurse) and an older brother Arthur (railway shunter) living in a house in Daly St, West Brunsick. In actual fact Arthur was a state school teacher, or was when he enlisted in 1916.

War service

Of the three Cecil siblings who enlisted, Edith was the first. She joined the AANS in October 1915. She was 27 years old, relatively young compared with many other nurses. Teacher Arthur (33) and youngest child George Cyril (22), occupation actor, enlisted in October 1916, a full year later. Both returned in 1919 unscathed in terms of battle injuries although George spent almost four months in hospital in England with gonorrhoea.

From the first pages of her service record, it appears that Edith joined the AANS only in the last year of the war and that her role was limited to one round trip to England with the No 8 Sea Transport Service. In that section, she listed Sister Hilda Mary Cecil of 'Mount St Evans Hospital, Victoria Parade, East Melbourne' as her next of kin. 

In fact Edith had embarked for overseas much earlier, in November 1915, on the 'Orsova' with a group of nurses who were reinforcements for the 1 Australian General Hospital then in Egypt. She did not have an auspicious beginning: within two months of reporting to 1 AGH in Heliopolis, she was hospitalised for a fortnight with  tonsilitis followed by influenza. 

In April 1916, 1 AGH moved on to France as casualties became an avalanche. Edith remained in Egypt, attached briefly to the 3 Australian Auxiliary Hospital and then to the Military Infectious Diseases Hospital at Choubra, out of Cairo. 

Choubra (pictured below) was 'very well equipped and very comfortable' according to Edith Williams AANS, who had travelled with Edith on the Orsova and was attached to Choubra with her (Edith Dean Williams, "Cairo to Boulogne', in Willingly into the Fray: One Hundred Years of Australian Army Nursing, ed. C. McCullagh, pp.47-48). Previously an Austro-Hungarian private hospital, Choubra had about 400 beds and treated diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid, dysentery, mumps and measles with considerable success. The two Ediths and other nurses were billeted in a large house nearby with their own servants. The food was 'very good', the worst aspect being tensions between the British doctors and Australian nurses. 

After seven months at Choubra, the Australian nurses were transferred first to England in mid January 1917 , and within a fortnight to the 13 [British] General Hospital at Boulogne-sur-mer, where there was a huge concentration of troops and hospitals staffed by personnel from around the Commonwealth and later that year, from the United States. 

Like Choubra, the 13 General Hospital had British doctors and Australian nursing staff. With around 650 beds, it functioned primarily as an evacuation hospital particularly for stretcher patients. However, several of its medical officers (among them Lt Alexander Fleming) were keenly interested in combatting infection through careful laboratory pathology and vaccination. Nursing accommodation was problematic until army authorities secured and refurbished the Marine Hotel in Boulogne as a mess and then as quarters. 

Edith spent five months at 13 BGH, leaving in July 1917 first for leave in France and then for transfer to England for transport duty. She was attached to the 2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital (2AAH) in Southall, which specilised in treating and rehabilitating amputees. She spent several weeks there before accompanying some of its patients back to Australia on HMAT Suevic (A29). She arrived home on 18 November 1917.

In February 1918, Edith again embarked for England on the 'Nestor', this time as part of the No 8 Section, Sea Transport Service. These sections were specially formed medical units recruited for the specific purpose of escorting troops back. She returned again with troops from the 2 AAH, leaving on the 'Gaika' in May on the six week voyage home for the second time.

Once more and for the final time, Cecil embarked for overseas with the Sea Transport Service from Sydney on 14 October 1918. She sailed on the ‘Wyreema’, a coastal steamer abruptly requisitioned by the Australian Government to the chagrin of North Queenslanders who protested at lost services (Brisbane Courier, 4.10.1918 p 8).  Aboard were were 700 troops mainly bound for France, and 46 nurses who were mostly reinforcements for hospitals in Salonika. The ship and its contingent left Sydney with great fanfare, perhaps a sign of optimism that hostilities would shortly cease (Sydney Morning Herald, 15.10.18, p6). (Two other East Melbourne connected nurses, Annie Purcell and Erica Edgcumbe, were also aboard.)

The magazine from part of the voyage survives, The Wyreemian : the magazine of the ship's company of H.M.A.T. Wyreema, Nov. 7th, 1918 (NLA, accessed online). A compilation of serious, poignant and funny pieces, it conveys something of the ship’s diverse company and a myriad of activities on board including boat drill, boxing competitions, concerts and a topical debate (‘Terms of Peace as Embodied in President Wilson’s 14 Points’).  In a reflective piece entitled ‘Why we came late’, an anonymous contributor considered an unspoken accusation that they were late comers to a conflict now on the verge of ending. From the ages of the men aboard (predominantly under 20 or middle aged family men), he concluded they were by no means lacking in patriotism: ’95 per cent of those here have come at the earliest possible moment that could be managed’ (Wyreemian, p12).  

There were several brief references to the nurses. Their presence had a positive effect, the commanding officer enthused, contributing to the voyage being a ‘a cheerful one’ (Wyreemian, p2).

The Wyreemian was printed in Capetown, ‘the first suitable port of call’. Ingenious methods may have been used as officially, Capetown was off limits to troops landing because of the influenza epidemic. Presumably supplied were loaded and some business conducted. The 'Wyreema' reached Albany, WA in mid December and some nurses were posted for duty to Woodman's Point to care for troops with influenza. After a period of quarantine the 'Wyreema' sailed for Adelaide,  Melbourne and Sydney to disembark its troops and passengers. Edith disembarked in Melbourne on 21 December. 

Edith Cecil was discharged from the AANS on 4 January 1919.

After the war

When the war ended in November 1918, Edith was only 30 and single. She had had a raft of experiences in Egypt, France and England as well as in troop transport. Apart from a brief period of illness early in 1916, she seems to have enjoyed good health throughout her active service.

Like a number of returned sisters, she spent the remainder of her professional life nursing sick and wounded soldiers. She worked in the 1920s and 1930s at the Caulfield Military Hospital in Melbourne and according to the electoral rolls lived at the hospital in the nurses' quarters. 

Edith Cecil died after a long illness at the age of 52, on 19 November 1940, at the Camberwell home of her youngest brother George (the actor turned manufacturer). Her funeral took place at St Dominic's Church, Riversdale Rd, Camberwell. 

Acknowledgments: 
I am indebted to Michael K Cecil for additional information about the personnel on the 'Wyreema' and for correcting my errors about its return voyage in November 1918. 

This essay was originally published on the East Melbourne Historical Society website, emhs.org.au