Laura Woollcombe

Educated at Timaru. She trained as a nurse at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. She gained her nursing certificate in 1892, it was presented to her by Florence Nightingale. In 1897 she joined the Army Nursing Reserve. She was the first Sister in charge of nurses to leave England for South Africa during the Boer War. For two years until peace was signed she served at No. 2 Hospital train, with headquarters at Pretoria. She returned to New Zealand in 1933 and settled in Timaru. Member of All Saints Church congregation. In later years her sight began to deteriorate and a few months before she died she became totally blind. In the 1882 List of Freeholders of N.Z., Laura Woollcombe of Timaru owned land in Timaru valued at $260.

Tombstone in the Timaru Cemetary

L. R. Woollcombe 1862 - 1948

See also 'Great Days in N.Z. Nursing' by Joan Rattray, (Reed, 1961)

From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-... (Accessed 6th October 2012)

The history of New Zealand nursing is in the process of being re-written by Hawke's Bay historian Sherayl McNabb.

The book planned for 2015 will recall an interview in The Timaru Herald of one of the country's first nurses, Timaruvian Laura Woollcombe.

Miss Laura Russell Woollcombe, the eldest child of Captain Belfield Woollcombe, South Canterbury's first magistrate, was the third white child to be born in Timaru. She is thought to be the first New Zealander to become a qualified nurse. She left New Zealand at 25, trained at St Bartholomew's London, where her uncle was surgeon-in-charge, and gained her certificate in 1892.

This was presented to her by Florence Nightingale. She joined the Army Nursing Service and was a sister-in-charge of the first unit of nurses to leave England in 1899 for South Africa. For two years, until peace was signed, she served on No 2 Hospital Train with its headquarters in Pretoria.

The following is her own telling of that experience.

In Queen Victoria's time Princess Christian, one of her daughters, whom we call the Nurses' Princess as she was always interested in everything to do with nurses, considered that there were not enough regular Army sisters, so she and a London doctor drew up a plan which was finally approved by the War Office. Thus, the Army Nursing Service Reserve came into being.

The members of this service were to be thoroughly trained and certified and able to prove their British origin. Fortunately, I had a copy of my birth certificate, as I was born in New Zealand.

When war was declared between England and the Transvaal we were notified to hold ourselves in readiness to proceed to South Africa for service on one of the Hospital Trains running for the first time.

Quite regardless of the heat we were going into, we were given uniforms of thick cotton frocks, large linen aprons, the usual army cap and the red cape worn by all Army sisters. The outdoor uniform consisted of navy serge frocks, little bonnets tied with velvet with a bow under the chin and a long nurse's cloak, also of this blue serge, no sleeves and fastened at the neck with a large button. The cloak was lined back inside with a strip of red cashmere. At the back hung a monk's hood, also lined with the same red - very suitable for the winter foggy weather of November when we left London, but not much for the intense heat that we encountered at Cape Town.

Hospital train

We travelled out in a very crowded troop ship but were quite comfortable, and I shall never forget sailing into Table Bay on a hot sunny morning, with Table Mountain with its flat top standing out so nobly. We were sent to Wynberg, which was the permanent camp, but which for the time being had been turned into a hospital.

The other sister and I who had been appointed to the Hospital Train remained there a week with nothing to do, then one morning we were suddenly told to catch the train at Wynberg for Woodstock, and on our arrival there we saw the Hospital Train steaming in from Cape Town - a very ordinary looking train except for the Red Crosses painted on it. We were rushed across the rails and pushed and bustled into the train, which really scarcely stopped. Our orderlies hurled the luggage though the windows and we steamed off to Belmont.

The staff consisted of the RAMC, a civil surgeon and two sisters. We lived in the first saloon coach with a compartment each and one for the mess room. The rest of the train consisted of a kitchen with stove, a man to cook, and a kitchen boy.

We rushed on through the night and at 5am the next morning, whilst sitting at breakfast we drew up at Belmont station, actually on the spot where the first battle had taken place the day before.

The cook's goat

We saw two dead mules lying near the track, and as the train stopped our cook, Ben, was running across the veldt, and we wondered what he was after. On his return I found that he had a little baby goat in his arm. A herd of wild angora had been feeding there the day before.

They were so frightened at the firing that they had fled, leaving the baby behind.

Ben fed the kid on condensed milk, and put it in the guards van, where it lived very happily until we returned to Cape Town, where he sold it for £20.

We were soon at work, and our orders were to take down the wounded Boers, first to the Orange River where there was a field hospital. They had spent the night in the railway shed. Most of them were walking cases and sat in the train very contentedly. One old man of 72, who was wounded in the leg, was hugging a huge umbrella, which he would not part with for a moment. We were curious to know what he was hiding but the officer-in-charge would not allow it.

Off we went to the Orange River. (And here occurred the incident of the two Tommy stretcher bearers who shielded a Boer's wound and face with their helmets, leaving themselves unprotected from the blazing sun.)

Gordon Highlanders

Returning to Belmont we loaded up with our own men and took them to Wynberg.

Soon after this Magersfontein was fought, so away we went once more, and this time to the Moder River Station, the nearest we could get, just as the Last Post was sounding. It was a dreadful time for the troops as their beloved General Wauchop had been killed, and 50 Gordon Highlanders had just been buried in a huge trench near the station.

It seemed that the Boers had erected a large barbed wire entanglement and were concealed behind it, and the poor Gordon Highlanders were led by a disguised Boer right up to the entanglement, where many were killed.

The wounded had to be brought 10 miles over the veldt in trek wagons, each drawn by 16 little mules.

It was a cold night and they were all very dejected and miserable.

They were soon put to bed and made as comfortable as possible, mattresses having been procured from somewhere, and the patients were laid on them all along the floor of the train.

Our captain, who had thought of everything, had had a quantity of beef tea made on the train with a dash of brandy in it, and told the other sister and me to take a feeder of beef tea in each hand, and so we went round feeding two at a time as fast as we could, stepping over the men on the floor.

Later we went round with a tiny drop of water and washed the faces of several men, using the same water. It seemed dreadful, but water was so scarce and this had to be done. Later, boilers were built at intervals along the line, and this was a great help to the hospital trains. It seldom rained, but when it did there was such a deluge that every culvert became a torrent.

The officers were dreadfully downhearted, the younger ones crying pitifully as they went round giving out oranges.

Unfortunately here Laura Woollcombe's story ends abruptly and no further account of her Boer War experience has been preserved.

During World War I Miss Woollcombe was sister-in-charge of a dispensary attached to a munition factory for some time, and attended to the injuries of the girls who worked there. In 1933, after an absence of 40 years, she returned to Timaru and lived with her family until her death in 1948.

Those who knew Miss Woollcombe described her as a gentle lady whose long years could never dim her graces, her brightness of outlook or kindness of heart.

To the end she kept the courageous spirit manifested in her story.