Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War R.R.C. group of six awarded to Miss Gwendoline Williams, American Ambulance Hospital

Royal Red Cross, 1st Class (R.R.C.), G.V.R., gold and enamel, on lady’s bow riband; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Miss G. Williams.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, erased; 1914 Star (G. Williams. Amer. Amb. Hosp.); British War and Victory Medals (Sister G. Williams.) mounted as worn, toned, good very fine (6) £1200-1600

R.R.C. London Gazette 3 June 1918:
‘In recognition of her valuable service with the Armies in France and Flanders.’

Gwendoline Williams was born at Glynneath, Glamorganshire in 1871, and trained at the Royal London Hospital from 1888 to 1890. She was subsequently employed at the York Road Hospital, Lambeth. Following the outbreak of the Boer War, Miss Williams travelled to South Africa where she served as a locally employed civilian nurse, attached to the Army Nursing Service, and qualified for her Queen’s South Africa Medal without clasp for her services with No 1 General Hospital, Wynberg, and No 13 General Hospital, Bloemfontein. The remarks column on the Q.S.A. roll additionally notes: ‘from Simons Town 23rd July 1900 to No 1 General Hospital 2nd March 1901’. Although she later made a statement on her Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve application form that she had served in South Africa from 1899 until 1902, her name is not included in the King’s South Africa Medal Roll.

Returning to the UK in 1902, Miss William was appointed Sister at the Louise Margaret Hospital, Aldershot, following which she took temporary charge at two cottage hospitals, before securing employment as a ‘Trained Sick Nurse’ in London. On the outbreak of the Great War, she volunteered her services to the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, being accepted for overseas duty on 12th August 1914. Embodied for service with No 4 General Hospital, Wimereux, she proceeded to France on the 1st September 1914, and was one of the first nurses to be selected for duty with the American Ambulance Hospital, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris.

‘The American Hospital in Paris did not wait for war to begin in 1914 to commit unconditionally to the French cause. On 2 August, twenty-four hours before the German Empire declared war on France, the hospital began, in the words of its 1914 Annual Report, “massing our forces so as to meet the conditions which faced the Hospital during the period of war.” The Board of Governors of the four-year old institution in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine resolved to assist the French soldiers who would inevitably be wounded. Unlike the vast majority of their countrymen at home, Americans in Paris were anything but neutral. By early September, the Ambulance had taken shape. While work continued on the upper floors, one hundred beds were ready and waiting on the completed first floor. On 6 September, the waiting ended. The French Army launched its counter-offensive to save Paris and push the invading Germans north of the River Marne, producing some of the first wounded of the modern age. The first four wounded troops arrived at the Ambulance on 6 September, and the numbers increased with each passing day: 91 on 15 September, 146 the next day, 209 the day after that, leading to an average of 238 new casualties every day for the rest of the month. With so many wounded men coming into the Ambulances at Neuilly 13 and Juilly, the need for more nurses became acute. The Ambulance Committee met at the Lycée Pasteur on 27 September to consider an offer by Mrs. Oliver of the Saint John’s Ambulance Association in London to provide orderlies and “as many trained certificated nurses, speaking French, as might be needed”. The Committee accepted the offer, and English nurses took their place alongside their American sisters at the Lycée Pasteur.’ (The American Hospital of Paris, by Charles Glass refers).

Gwendoline Williams later served as Matron with the hospital ship, H.M.H.S. St Denis, before joining No’s 13 and 14 General Hospitals, Boulogne, the latter appointment as Sister-in-Charge of the Nurses Hostel, Boulogne. Her service record provides the following summary of her service with the Q.A.I.M.N.S.R.: ‘Relieved Miss Lowe as Matron of Hospital Ship ‘St Denis’ on 22nd August 1916; No 14 General Hospital Boulogne from December 1916; Hospital Ship ‘St Denis’ from January 1917; No 13 General Hospital Boulogne from April 1917; Nurses Senior Hostel Boulogne as Senior-in-Charge from July 1917; No 7 SSS attached from Seniors Hostel from November 1917; UK Leave from August 1919; No 43 Ambulance Train from September 1919; to Home Establishment from April 1920; Cambridge Hospital Aldershot from December 1920; King George V Hospital Dublin from March 1921; Military Families Hospital Ripon from February 1922; Louise Margaret Hospital Aldershot from October 1922; Demobilised 30th November 1922’. Her demobilisation, ‘unfit for active service – old fracture of wrist’, was almost certainly brought about as a result of an accidental fall down a flight of stairs, which occurred whilst on duty, on 22 July 1920, resulting in her fracturing her right wrist.

For her valuable services as Acting Sister-in-Charge, Nurses Hostel, Boulogne, she was awarded the Royal Red Cross in the 1918 Birthday Honours List, and she was presented with her R.R.C. by H.M. King George V at Buckingham Palace on 3 July 1918. Following the Armistice, she returned to private nursing, and died in London on 24 June 1943.