Staff Nurse Elizabeth “Lizzie” Rothery – First World War
RSL Victoria remembers the sacrifice of Staff Nurse Elizabeth “Lizzie” Rothery who lost her life in service of her country during the First World War.
Elizabeth was born in the small village of Cleator Moor in Cumbria in North West England, one of seven children born to Joseph and Mary Jane Rothery. Sadly, and all too commonly at the time, only Elizabeth, her sister Hannah and younger brother Henry survived childhood.
She was only two years of age when her parents migrated to Australia. The family settled in Beechworth initially where her father became the secretary of the Ovens Pottery Company Limited and invented an “improved refrigerator for the storage of butter and milk” which he had patented in 1890.
The family eventually settled in Myrtleford where her father established a general store covering everything from groceries to hardware and drapery.
Lizzie attended a private school in Beechworth until the end of 1898 before returning to Myrtleford to work as a shop assistant with her sister in their father’s store.
At the age of 27 Lizzie left her father’s business to train as a nurse at the Ovens District Hospital before moving to Melbourne where she trained as a midwife as the First World War broke out in Europe.
Lizzie enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) in June 1915. Her brother had enlisted in the Army in March, arriving on the Gallipoli Peninsula in August just as Lizzie was posted to the 5th Australian General Hospital in Melbourne to treat returned servicemen.
Unbeknown to the family Henry was listed as missing in fighting just two weeks before the Australian withdrawal from Gallipoli. Following the Australians evacuation a board of inquiry determined that he had been killed in action, and the family received the devastating news that he would not be returning home.
The news prompted Lizzie to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force as a nurse on active service and she departed for military service in September 1916. She arrived first in India where she worked in Bombay at the Victoria War Hospital where she treated soldiers and prisoners of war brought from the front lines, both for the injuries in the front and diseases like cholera which were rampant in the area.
After eight months she was sent to England where she worked in military hospitals in Nottingham and London before returning to Australia on a transport ship caring for wounded soldiers returning home.
She worked briefly at the Caulfield Military hospital before being appointed to as a staff nurse to a hospital ship which was responsible for transporting wounded and shell-shocked soldiers between Egypt, South Africa and Australia.
On 12 June 1918 she arrived back in Melbourne on the hospital ship AHS Karoola with undiagnosed illness. She returned to her parents’ home in Myrtleford and was briefly reunited with them and her sister Hannah.
She travelled on to visit a friend in Beechworth when her illness became much more serious, and she was diagnosed with acute appendicitis, and she died suddenly on 15 June 1918, only three days after arriving back in Australia.
The Argus newspaper reported her death on 18 June, noting that she was given a military funeral at Beechworth the previous day. For her parents, this was the second child they had lost to the war, leaving only their daughter Hanna to grieve with them.
In the following weeks her father, Joseph, reached out to the military seeking information as to what had become of her belongings.
“When my daughter died,” he wrote, “she left on the “Karoola” all her linen and portable bed etc. I wrote to the Department at the time and was promised attention to the matter. It is rather hard, I have given my only son and one of my daughters to the cause, made no claim on the country, repatriation, or institution, and yet from neither of them was anything belonging to them ever returned to me.”
Despite further enquiries by the Army and Department no trace was ever found of his children’s belongings.
RSL Victoria pays tribute to Staff Nurse Elizabeth Rothery, her family and all those who have sacrificed in the service of their country.
Lest We Forget.
