“A gifted leader, educator, and administrator, Edith Catherine Rayside helped shape Canadian military nursing during the First World War and the nursing profession that emerged in its aftermath.”

When Edith Catherine Rayside enlisted in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in February 1916, she brought with her nearly fifteen years of nursing experience, a university education, and a reputation as an accomplished hospital administrator. Those qualifications would propel her to become Canada’s Matron-in-Chief during the First World War, responsible for overseeing military nursing services across the country at a critical period in Canadian history.

Born on 26 January 1872 at Martintown, Ontario, Rayside earned a Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University before graduating from the St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing in Ottawa in 1901. At a time when relatively few women attended university, she combined academic achievement with professional nursing education, establishing a foundation for a career that would span clinical practice, public health, education, and administration.

Before the First World War, Rayside’s career was anything but ordinary. She worked in private nursing, served as a public health nurse in Ottawa, and later became a district nurse in rural Saskatchewan. In 1908 she accepted the position of Superintendent of Nurses at the modern hospital operated by the Peñoles Mining Company in Mapimí, Mexico. Living through the political unrest of the Mexican Revolution, she gained valuable experience managing hospital operations under challenging conditions before returning to Canada in 1914.

Recognizing her exceptional administrative abilities, the Canadian Army Medical Corps commissioned Rayside as a Nursing Sister on 4 February 1916. Rather than serving as a junior nurse, she was immediately appointed one of only two matrons responsible for the nursing services of No. 2 Canadian General Hospital at Le Tréport, France. The hospital, with more than 1,000 beds, treated thousands of wounded and sick soldiers from the Western Front. There, Rayside supervised approximately seventy Nursing Sisters while ensuring the highest standards of patient care under wartime conditions. 

Although she rarely wrote about herself, one surviving letter offers a glimpse into the realities faced by Canada’s Nursing Sisters. Describing the wounded arriving from the front, she wrote that their injuries were “too awful for words.” Yet, despite strict military discipline, she admitted to quietly giving Canadian patients “little favors on the Q.T.”—a reminder that compassion remained at the heart of military nursing even amid the horrors of war.

Rayside’s abilities soon attracted the attention of senior medical leadership. She was appointed Matron at Moore Barracks Hospital in Shorncliffe, England, before being assigned to the office of the Director General of Medical Services in London. On 11 September 1917 she returned to Canada to assume the appointment of temporary Matron-in-Chief at Militia Headquarters in Ottawa. In that role, she supervised nursing services in more than sixty Canadian military hospitals, managed the selection and posting of Nursing Sisters for overseas service, and helped direct military nursing during the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919. 

Her distinguished wartime service earned significant recognition. She was Mentioned in Dispatches, received the Royal Red Cross (First Class) for exceptional nursing service, and was later appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in recognition of her lifelong contributions to nursing and public service. 

Following the war, Rayside continued to influence Canadian nursing. After completing advanced studies in nursing education at Columbia University in New York, she helped modernize nursing education at the Montreal General Hospital and later served as Superintendent of Nurses at Hamilton General Hospital. She remained active in numerous professional organizations, including the Canadian Nurses Association and the Overseas Nursing Sisters’ Association of Canada, mentoring future nursing leaders and advocating for higher standards in nursing education and practice.

Edith Catherine Rayside retired to her family home in Martintown, Ontario, where she died on 20 December 1950 at the age of seventy-eight.

Today, Edith Catherine Rayside is remembered not only for her distinguished military service but also for her lasting influence on Canadian nursing. As Matron-in-Chief during one of Canada’s greatest national challenges, she demonstrated that military nursing required not only clinical excellence, but also leadership, organization, and unwavering dedication to those in need. Her career remains an enduring example of the professionalism and service that continue to define Canada’s military nurses.

Service Highlights

Born: 26 January 1872, Martintown, Ontario

Education

• Bachelor of Arts, Queen’s University
• Graduate, St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing, Ottawa (1901)

Enlisted

• 4 February 1916
• Canadian Army Medical Corps

Principal Appointments

• Matron, No. 2 Canadian General Hospital, Le Tréport, France
• Matron, Moore Barracks Hospital, Shorncliffe, England
• Temporary Matron-in-Chief, Director General of Medical Services, Militia Headquarters, Ottawa (1917–1920)

Honours

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
• Royal Red Cross (First Class) (RRC)
• Mentioned in Dispatches (MID)

Died: 20 December 1950, Martintown, Ontario

Born in Souris, Prince Edward Island, on 14 June 1880, Rena Maude MacLean graduated from the Rhode Island Hospital School of Nursing in 1908. She enlisted in the Canadian Army Medical Corps as a Nursing Sister at Quebec City on 28 September 1914, becoming one of the earliest Canadian nursing officers to volunteer for overseas service. Library and Archives Canada service record

MacLean sailed for England in October 1914 and served overseas for nearly four years in Canada, England, France, and Greece. Her wartime service included postings to Canadian and British military hospitals at Rouen, the Duchess of Connaught’s Canadian Red Cross Hospital at Taplow, No. 1 Canadian Stationary Hospital at Salonika, and No. 16 Canadian General Hospital at Orpington. Beginning in 1916, she also undertook transport duty, escorting wounded soldiers between Britain and Canada aboard hospital and troop ships. In February 1918 she was posted to the hospital ship HMHS Araguaya before returning briefly to No. 16 Canadian General Hospital. In March 1918 she joined the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle.

Despite years of demanding service, MacLean remained optimistic. In a letter written aboard Llandovery Castle on 16 June 1918, she wrote:

Voices of Service

Here we are once more approaching Halifax, but still as far from home as ever… This trip more than half our patients are amputation cases and would make you heartsick only they are so cheerful and happy themselves… This may be my last trip over and, if it is, that means that I don’t get home until dear knows when, for as soon as I get to England I am going to put in for France and once there it will be hard enough to get away.

Rena Maude MacLean, RRC Nursing Sister, HMHS Llandovery Castle 1918

On the night of 27 June 1918, while sailing from Halifax to Liverpool, HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed by the German submarine U-86 off the coast of Ireland, despite being clearly marked as a hospital ship protected under international law. Only 24 of the 258 people on board survived. All fourteen Canadian Nursing Sisters aboard, including Rena MacLean, were lost. Her service record records her simply as “Missing, presumed drowned, 27 June 1918.” She was 38 years old.

Margaret Isobel Bartlett was born on May 5, 1918, in Dunnville, Ontario, to parents May and Herbert Bartlett. She was raised along with her older brother Harry on a large dairy farm where by age five she was responsible for feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs. At age 18 she started nursing school at the Toronto Western Hospital and after graduation took a position on the maternity ward at The Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. While living in New York, she met a dashing young British pilot who was on holiday in New York after training with the Canadian Air Force. When Margaret tried to join the Canadian Army to work overseas during WWII, she was turned down because of her young age so she promptly volunteered with the Red Cross and soon found herself on a convoy sailing to the UK. After docking in Britain, however, she was met by her boyfriend’s family with the devastating news that he had been killed during a bombing mission. The next day she accompanied his family walking his remains in a wheelbarrow through a small English town to the church for burial.

While on the ship, Margaret had been put in charge of two girls who were returning to London after being sent to Canada by their parents at the beginning of the war. A few weeks later, she was invited to spend a weekend with the girls and their family. It turns out that their father was Sir Edward Peacock, Director of the Bank of England, who after hearing about Margaret’s wish to join the Canadian army, quickly made it so. Margaret soon found herself in uniform and part of a field hospital unit that kept close to the front line caring for the wounded. By the end of WWII, she was in Germany with the horrific task of emptying war camps of survivors. 

Margaret met her husband, David Guildford, during the war on a blind date in the UK. David spent most of the war in Italy but they would meet up in England where he was usually found playing piano at a “Tea Dance” and Margaret would be dancing – she could apparently cut quite a rug. She was known to catch a ride on an empty bomber to meet David and he would drive his motorcycle a long way to meet her. One day, he tracked her down at a German estate the army had taken over as a field hospital. He took her out on a lake in a small rowboat and proposed… she claims she said yes as she didn’t know how to swim.

After their eventual return to Canada, they settled in David’s home city of Halifax and had four children – Margo, Bart, Stephanie and Elizabeth. Margo and Bart developed what is now known as Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Margaret cared for them herself for 30 years before eventually moving them into care at a nursing home. Margaret and David never made their family feel different from any other, taking long summer trips to Ontario in the Buick with two adults, four kids, a dog and two wheelchairs… often camping along the way. After Bart died in 1980, Margaret went back to nursing, eventually becoming a hospice nurse. She spent many years helping patients and their families deal with death and became a vital part of many homes.

David and Margaret built their dream home “Endomor”, in St Margaret’s Bay in 1983. When David died just a year later at age 63, Margaret opened her home up as a B&B for ten years paying off the mortgage and making new friends from all over the world. She spent 35 years enjoying the beauty of the seasons in St Margaret’s Bay, keeping daily journals of the weather, hosting the St Margaret’s Bay Coffee Club and of course…bridge games! Over the years, grandchildren and great-grandchildren came along, and Margaret became affectionately known to many as Gran. Her beloved home was the center of family birthdays, events, and celebrations, and many summer days spent swimming in the ocean. Gran always believed that a swim in salt water could cure anything.

At 98 years of age, Margaret decided to move to Camp Hill Veterans Hospital where she had volunteered for many years. She enjoyed the comradery of her fellow veterans and never tired of instructing nursing students how to fold hospital corners when making up the bed! The Veteran’s Memorial Garden was a favourite place where she spent many hours. She has been the recipient of many medals and awards for her dedicated service to her country and fellow veterans, including the Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Medal (2002) and Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). Over the years, Margaret made pilgrimages to Vimy and other significant battle sites in memory and celebration of those who fought for our freedom. She was a dedicated member of the Nursing Sisters Association of Nova Scotia, including serving as President. At 100 years old, she was knighted and made a Dame of the Order of Saint George, Grand Priory of Canada. Margaret died in 2023 aged 105.

When Canadians think of military nursing during the twentieth century, they usually picture the Nursing Sisters of the First and Second World Wars. For more than sixty years, however, commissioned Nursing Officers in Canada’s military were exclusively women.

That changed in November 1967, when the Canadian Armed Forces commissioned Lieutenant Roy D. Field as the first male Nursing Officer. Field had served for eighteen years as an Army X-ray technician before qualifying as a registered nurse and becoming the first man to receive a commission as a Nursing Officer. Roy grew up in Parrsboro, NS and graduated from the Nova Scotia Hospital nursing program where he met his future wife Alice Crowell. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces and served for 25 years across Canada before retiring to Diligent River where he an Alice rank greenhouses. He was also Hospital Administrator at South Cumberland memorial Hospital. Roy died in 2023.

Shortly after his own commissioning, Roy was soon joined by Lieutenant Donald Nafziger and Lieutenant Lionel Joseph Muise, forming the nucleus of a new generation men in Canadian military nursing whose biograpical footprints are scant. By 1965, Lionel Joseph Muise was employed as a nurse at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax and resided in the hospital’s male residence before joining the Canadian Armed Forces. By early 1970, the Canadian Armed Forces had established four positions for male Nursing Officers, all of which had been filled, marking the successful integration of men into the commissioned nursing profession. Two were employed at Canadian Forces Hospital Halifax, two in Esquimalt, BC, and one at the 1 Air Division Medical centre in Lahr, Germany who was also an aeromedical evacuation flight nurse.

The decision to commission men as nursing officers followed years of advocacy by the Canadian Nurses Association and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario reflected changing attitudes toward nursing as a profession. Until 1967, men could serve in military medical occupations but were not eligible to receive commissions as Nursing Officers. The commissioning of these four pioneers ended a long-standing barrier and demonstrated that professional nursing in the Canadian Armed Forces would be based on qualifications rather than gender. 

Today, male Nursing Officers serve throughout the Canadian Armed Forces in clinical, leadership, education, operational, and deployed roles. Their service traces directly to the determination of these first four officers, whose commissioning marked a significant step in the evolution of Canadian military nursing.

Did you Know?

• 1967 marked the first commissioning of a male to the Nursing Officer occupation
• Lieutenant Roy D. Field, was the first male commissioned to the Nursing Officer Occupation
• By 1970, four of four authorized positions for men in the Nursing Occupation had been filled
• The identity of the fourth member of this pioneering cohort remains the subject of ongoing historical research by the MNAC-AIIMC

Do you know more about any of the original cohort? Let us know: info@mnac-aiimc.ca.