ALLSOPP, Beatrice

(extracts from an article in Soins)

Biography

Born in Wandsworth (now part of London), Surrey in 1882, her father was a bookseller with a shop on the High Street. She was educated at Stockwell College in Lambeth, and then had a short period in domestic service before entering the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1906 .

Nursing Service in WW1

Beatrice Allsop joined the QAIMNSR in August 1914, shortly after Britain joined the war, and was typical of the nurses coming forward to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) heading for Belgium. In September 1914 Staff Nurse Beatrice Allsop was mobilised, and posted to No. 7 General Hospital, firstly at Amiens and then at St Omer.

Beatrice Allsop was one of the first nurses to be awarded the Military Medal for bravery. She was wounded when the Casualty Clearing Station at Bethune was shelled, but continued working until all the patients had been evacuated, and the nursing sisters were all moved to a hospital further away from the front.

From the 33 CCS War Diary entry for the 7th August 1916 it can be seen that the CCS was hit by a shell during the bombardment of Bethune. On that morning the unit was busy loading patients onto hospital barges on the nearby canal (hospital barges were converted from general use barges, with access hatches cut into the roofs, and the holds converted into 30-bed wards and accommodation for the QAIMNS nurses). Just before lunch a bombardment of the town of Bethune began, with some shells falling close to the CCS. By 12.30 the staff had finished evacuating patients who were fit to travel and the barges had departed. It was then decided to move all of the remaining patients and staff into the cellars of the building in which the CCS had been set up.

At about 13.30 a large shell struck the outer West corner of the chapel roof and exploded in mid-air over the unit’s vehicles. Some lorries caught fire immediately along with two ambulances. The staff of the unit managed to save the remaining ambulances although they were badly damaged, and they also brought the fires under control.

The unit was visited by the Director of Medical Services (DMS) 1st Army, who ordered that as the bombardment was continuing, all patients should be removed to No. 1 CCS at Chocques. This was completed in two to three hours. Most of the staff went with the patients but the nurses were sent to No. 10 General Hospital at St. Omer as a temporary measure.

The Commanding Officer of 33 CCS recorded that seven members of the unit had been killed by the shell, and that six medical officers, four nurses, and five other members of the unit had been wounded but had remained on duty.

Beatrice Allsop was wounded while in the operating theatre but continued her work, while Norah Easeby and Jean Whyte were hit by flying glass and splinters, and Ethel Hutchinson was knocked to the floor. Nonetheless, the nurses helped complete the move of the patients to safety, firstly to the cellars, and then to Chocques, and continued their work through hours of shelling. Beatrice’s war records show that when she arrived at No.10 General Hospital she was admitted as a patient and then discharged the next day. The nurses returned to Bethune once the CCS was reopened. Five of the nurses were mentioned for their bravery that day:

• Matron Miss Mabel Mary Tunley, RRC QAIMNS.
• Acting Sister Miss Beatrice Allsop, QAIMNSR.
• Sister Miss Norah Easeby, QAIMNSR.
• Staff Nurse Miss Ethel Hutchinson, QAIMNSR.
• Staff Nurse Miss Jean Strachan Whyte, TFNS.

The Matron-in-Chief of the BEF, Maud McCarthy, recorded in her diary for the 8th August 1916:

Arrived at St. Omer, where I went to Mess to see Miss Tunley and the Sisters who had been shelled out of Bethune. They apparently behaved with conspicuous bravery. 204 patients were carried to the cellars. 2 operations were done under the bombardment, which had begun. Shelling continued for 3 hours, shells falling into the town at intervals of 10 minutes. 2 of the Sisters were slightly wounded from broken glass from windows. Most of the Chapel in the courtyard was absolutely destroyed, and many lorries and their drivers blown to atoms. The Surgeon-General said no praise was great enough for anyone of them, that men and women worked alike in a calm manner, and there was no confusion.

King George V presented Beatrice Allsop with her Military Medal at Buckingham Palace, on February 5th 1917.

She was posted to No.1 CSS, and then in September 1917 she was posted to 24 General Hospital at Etaples. The Sister-in Charge of No.1 CSS wrote a short report to accompany Beatrice to her new unit:

Sister BA Allsop has been here since Sept 12th 1916 and practically the whole time in charge of the Operating Theatre, which she managed with very good credit. She is an excellent Surgeon’s Assistant and Theatre Sister, quick, very capable, and always kept everything in perfect order. She managed her orderlies and everyone remarkably well.

Whilst at 24 General Hospital Beatrice pricked her thumb with a pin. The wound became infected and she was sent back to the UK in June 1918, for surgery at the Military Hospital in Millbank, London, where the distal portion of her thumb was removed.

When she was fit enough for duty she returned to France and was posted to No. 4 CCS at Solesmes. Here she worked as the Night Superintendent as her next report indicated:

Sister BA Allsop has been night superintendent since joining this unit, she is very conscientious and a good disciplinarian and gets on well with her fellow workers.

These reports were important for the QAIMNSR and TFNS nurses, because by the end of the war they had been away from civilian employment for several years and needed good reports from the Army to help them find jobs when they were demobilised. Beatrice Allsop had two further postings, 58 CCS at Tincourt, and 14 Stationary Hospital at Boulogne, before returning to the UK for demobilisation.

Nursing service after WW1

She secured a post as sub-Matron at the Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital in Margate, and in 1921 became Matron of the Northamptonshire County Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Rushden.