Founding President of the Overseas Nurses’ Association Service Summary Rank Major Service Canadian Army Medical Corps Canadian Women’s Army Corps Conflicts First World War Second World War Years of Service 1914–1918; 1941–1944 Honours & Awards Dame of Grace, The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem; 1914-15 Star; British War Medal; […]

Colonel Elizabeth Lawrie Smellie, CBE, RRC (22 March 1884 – 5 March 1968) was one of the most influential figures in the history of Canadian military nursing. A veteran of both the First and Second World Wars, she served as Matron-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps during the Second World War and, in 1944, became the first […]

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 […]

Rena Maude McLean (14 June 1879 – 27 June 1918) was among the first Canadian Nursing Sisters to volunteer for overseas service during the First World War. Over nearly four years she served in Canada, England, France, and Greece, caring for wounded soldiers in military hospitals and aboard hospital ships. She was one of the fourteen […]

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 […]

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, 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. […]