Resources
Marie Cameron, Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife
An ANZAC Story – Lest We Forget.
Marie Cameron, Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife. Matron of Christchurch’s, St Helen’s Maternity Hospital (now Christchurch Women’s Hospital) from 1911 – 1915.
Marie was born in 1877 on a sheep station, near Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. She trained as a general nurse at the Ovens District Hospital, Victoria and as a midwife at Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. On completion of her three-year training in 1903, she was appointed the head nurse of the male division of Beechworth’s Hospital for the Insane. In 1909, Marie had travelled to New Zealand and was nursing tuberculin patients at Te Waikato Sanatorium near Cambridge.
Two years later, in 1911, six years after New Zealand had regulated midwifery practice, Marie was appointed Matron of the St Helen’s State Maternity Hospital/Home in Sydenham, Christchurch. This was the fourth St Helen’s maternity hospital to be established in New Zealand and had been opened in 1907. St Helen’s Maternity Hospitals were quite revolutionary globally as they provided free maternity care to women as well as training of midwives. During her tenure at St Helen’s, Marie was elected to the governing committee of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Trained Nurses’ Association, now New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation (NZNO).
New Zealand’s response to the outbreak of The Great War in 1914, was to send troops to fight. New Zealand’s nurses were quick to express their desire to travel to provide nursing care to their wounded and sick soldiers. An amendment to the Defence Act allowed the formation of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service (NZANS). The first contingent of 50 nurses left Wellington for England on April 1st 1915.
A few weeks later, 42-year-old Marie left her role at St Helen’s to join the second contingent of NZANS nurses. She was appointed Matron of the 31 nurses, who left Wellington in May for the Middle East and on arrival became the Matron of the No. 1 New Zealand Stationary Hospital, which was initially set up in what had been a mission school at Port Said on the sandy shores of the Suez Canal.
On October 19th the Stationary Hospital including Matron Cameron and 35 New Zealand nurses under her charge, set sail from Alexandria to Salonika on the transport ship SS Marquette. On the morning of October 23rd, the Marquette was torpedoed necessitating abandonment of the ship. Matron Cameron was severely injured when the lifeboat she was in was lowered and fell on to another lifeboat. She wasn’t rescued from the water for two hours and at that point had collapsed and was not expected to live.
Many lives were lost in that disaster, including ten New Zealand nurses, three of whom were from Christchurch. Despite extensive injuries, Marie survived, but her life and health was severely compromised. She was invalided back to New Zealand, accompanied by her sister, Annie, who was serving as a theatre sister with the Australian Nursing Service.
In 1916 she was awarded the Royal Red Cross medal for her work in the Middle East during WW1 but was not well enough to attend an investiture ceremony until 1918, after she had returned to Sydney. She remained in care until her death in 1948.
Sources:
Hanson, A. (n.d.). April, 7, 2022. https://sites.google.com/view/ww1nursesfrombeechworthsurroun/ww1-nurses-who-trained-at-the-ovens-district-hospital/marie-cameron.
Matron Marie Cameron, RRC 1st Class, taken at her investiture - Kai Tiki: The Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand [image]
Rogers, A. (2018). Stand For All Time. The Marquette Sinking and the Nurses’ Memorial Chapel. Christchurch. Friends of the Nurses’ Memorial Chapel.
