McCarthy, Maud (1858–1949)
McCarthy, Maud (1858–1949)
Nurse and Matron-in-Chief of the British armed forces during World War I . Name variations: Dame Maud McCarthy; Emma Maud McCarthy. Born in 1858, in Sydney, Australia; died in 1949.
Maud McCarthy was born in Sydney, Australia, then a dominion of Great Britain, in 1858. She traveled to England to train in nursing at the London Hospital, and after completing her courses entered the nursing service of the British armed forces. McCarthy went to South Africa as an army nurse during the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, and upon the war's end entered Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. She remained in that post until 1910, when she was named principal matron of the War Office. At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, McCarthy was named Matron-in-Chief of the British armies in France. Her services to the British Empire were formally recognized in 1918, when she was created Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) and allowed to use the title "Dame." After the British armies in continental Europe returned to Britain in 1919, Maud McCarthy headed the Territorial Nursing Service from 1920 to 1925. She died in 1949.
collections:
Letters and a small collection of papers of Maud McCarthy are held at the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Museum in Aldershot, Hampshire, England.
Grant Eldridge , freelance writer, Pontiac, Michigan