Angela Manners
Angela Margaret Manners, RRC - Second Class, (15 June 1889 – 1 February 1970), was a member of the British aristocracy. During the First World War she worked on the Manners Ambulance, and was matron of Avon Tyrell Convalescent home for New Zealand Officers, Sopley, Hampshire.
Nursing career and the First World War
[edit]
Manners undertook three months nurse training as a paying probationer at The London Hospital from February 1914 under matron Eva Luckes.[1][2] At the outbreak of war, Manners worked as a nursing Sister on the Manners Ambulance from August 1914 -November 1914.[3][4] Manners had organised the Manners Ambulance which was funded by her family. She had recruited Catherine Elizabeth Anna Thorpe, matron of the West End Hospital in Welbeck Street, London, to be matron in charge of the ambulance.[4][5] Thorpe was a fully trained nurse who had also trained at The London Hospital. Described as a "Red Cross Heroine" Manners and Nellie Hozier (Winston Churchill's sister in law) were among the first 'Society girls' who rushed off to Belgium at the outbreak of the First World War.[3] Manners and Hozier arrived in Belgium just after the Battle of Mons.[3] Initially the Germans allowed them to remain and nurse the injured British prisoners of war, but shortly afterward they were arrested and inprisoned, where they were given 'bread and water'.[3] Eventually Manners and Hozier were allowed to return home via Norway.[3] Although Manners had appointed a fully trained nurse as matron of the ambulance the nursing press were concerned that society ladies with little or no nursing experience or training had rushed off to Belgium at the outbreak of war.[3]
After their release, Manners returned home, and from 1914 until 1919 she ran the Avon Tyrell Convalescent home for New Zealand Officers, in her family's home.[6][7]
Married life
[edit]In 1925 she married Colonel Hon. Christian Malise Hore-Ruthven, and they had three children. Her twin sister Betty married Brigadier General Arthur Asquith, son of Henry Asquith, the former Prime Minister, in 1918.[8]
Honours
[edit]In March 1916 Manners was awarded the Royal Red Cross- Second Class in recognition for her valuable services and devotion to duty when they worked under the Belgian Red Cross in Flanders.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Rogers, Sarah (2022). 'A Maker of Matrons’? A study of Eva Lückes’s influence on a generation of nurse leaders:1880–1919' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Huddersfield, April 2022)
- ^ Angela Manners, Register of Probationers; RLHLH/LH/N/1/23, 144; Barts Health NHS Trust Archives and Museums, London
- ^ a b c d e f "Nursing and The War, The Raid on the Wounded". The British Journal of Nursing. 1398 (54): 46–47. 16 January 1915 – via www.rcm.org.
- ^ a b "Nursing and The War, The Royal Red Cross". The British Journal of Nursing. 1485 (56): 225. 11 March 1916 – via www.rcn.org.
- ^ a b "The Royal Red Cross". The Daily Express: 4. 4 March 1916 – via www.findmypast.co.uk.
- ^ Eva Lückes to Margaret Paul, The London Hospital, 3 February 1915, Personal correspondence; RLHPP/PAU/1/31; The Royal London Hospital Archives, London
- ^ Hon. Angela Margaret Manners, VAD records, British Red Cross Society [Available at: https://VADredcross.org.uk, accessed 16 July 2020].
- ^ "Brigadier General Asquith". The Evening Telegraph and Post: 5. 29 March 1918 – via www.bna.org.uk.