Dame Maud McCarthy , one of the most highly decorated Women's leaders of WW1. She was Matron in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders , 1914 to 1919. In the year of the Nurse, it seems fitting to remember this Australian woman.
McCarthy was said to have been the only head of a department in the British Expeditionary Forces who remained in her original post throughout the war.
A group portrait of nursing staff of the Australian Voluntary hospital at St Nazaire, France in 1914.
Modest and unselfish, McCarthy dedicated her life to the provision of exemplary care. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1918 and later awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest international distinction a nurse can receive.
She was also awarded a Bar to the Royal Red Cross, the Belgian Medaille de la Reine Elizabeth, and the French Légion d'honneur and Medaille des Epidémies.
The nurses' general | The Australian War Memorial
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