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Laura Gamble

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Laura Gamble
Born(1887-09-04)4 September 1887
Died1939 (aged 51–52)
AllegianceCanada
Service / branchCanadian Expeditionary Force
Years of service1915–1919
RankSister
UnitCanadian Army Medical Corps
Battles / warsFirst World War
AwardsAssociate Royal Red Cross

Laura Gamble, ARRC (4 September 1887 – 1939) was a Canadian nurse who served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the First World War.

Nursing career

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A 1910 alumna of the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing, Gamble joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps as a nursing sister, enlisting on May 4, 1915.[1] She expected that her experience in a Toronto hospital would be an asset to the war effort.[2] She served on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean,[3] and at hospitals in Greece, France, and the United Kingdom.[4] She arrived on the Greek island of Lemnos after the Anglo-French force had already suffered heavy casualties as a result of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign.[5]

Canadian nurses were the only nurses of the British Empire's armies that held the rank of officers.[2] Gamble was awarded the Royal Red Cross 2nd class in 1917 for her show of "greatest possible tact and extreme devotion to duty".[2] This was presented to her at Buckingham Palace during a special ceremony for Canadian nurses.[2][6] She also received the British War Medal and Victory Medal.[7]

Gamble was recalled to Canada after the war and served as matron of St. Andrew's Military Hospital, Toronto. She was among the first nurses to take a new course in public health from the University of Toronto and worked for the Toronto Department of Public Health as Acting District Superintendent.[5]

The diary Gamble kept during the war is conserved at the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.[8]

References

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  1. ^ Canadian Great War Project: "Nursing Sister Laura Adelaide Gamble"
  2. ^ a b c d Library and Archives Canada: "Canada and the First World War: We Were There", 7 November 2008
  3. ^ Ottawa Citizen: "Amos: The Wakefield nurse who was decorated for First World War service"
  4. ^ Library and Archives Canada: "Laura Gamble, Nursing Sister, Canadian Army Medical Corps"
  5. ^ a b Steven Fouchard, Department of National Defence: "First World War Nursing Sister Laura Gamble: 'Tender hands, buoyant spirit'", 8 November 2019
  6. ^ "No. 30111". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 June 1917. p. 5488.
  7. ^ 1914.org: "Women in Public Service"
  8. ^ Library and Archives Canada: "Laura Gamble: Greece", 9 September 2020