Sister Emma Argyle CUTHBERT (R.R.C)
Address : c-o Mrs BORTHWICK, ‘Malwa’, Main Street, Heidelberg
Next of Kin : mother, Mrs Emma Argyle Cuthbert, King Street, Sydney (later South Yarra), Father Robert (late)
Emma Cuthbert was shown c-o Mrs Borthwick, “Malwa”, Main Street, Heidelberg when she embarked; her mother was given as next of kin in King Street, Sydney, but she appears to have been at “Arundel”, a large guest house on the corner of St. Kilda and Commercial Roads from June, 1918 and in 1919 in Davis Avenue, South Yarra.
One of the most senior Nurses to enlist, she had been a member of the Australian Army Nursing Service on its inauguration in 1902. She originally obtained her nursing qualification with three years training at the Children’s Hospital in Carlton commencing 1906 and where she spent another two and a half years as a Nursing Sister. She had also spent nearly three years with two private hospitals.
She was assigned the more senior rank of Sister rather than Staff Nurse and embarked on HMAT Kyarra on 5 December, 1914 with the first consignment of the Australian Army Nursing Service to sail for overseas, eventually establishing No. 1 AGH at Heliopolis in Egypt.
Sister Cuthbert served on transport duty on board the troopship HMAT Themistocles shipping around 900 wounded back from Gallipoli in August, 1915, and after three weeks leave, she was returned on the same vessel to 1 AGH in Cairo, re-embarking on 5 October, 1915.
1 AGH sailed from Egypt for France in late March, 1916 shortly after she was promoted to Head Sister; the unit arriving at Marseilles on 5 April. She was temporarily in charge of a batch of 16 nurses assigned to a British hospital, and in June appointed to No. 6 Stationary British Hospital just behind the front line at Arras, later to No. 1 AGH at Rouen.
On 11 November, 1917 she was appointed Matron-In-Chief of the hospital, although just two months later she was ordered back to England and assigned to No. 3 AGH which was at Brighton preparing to go to France for the first time. After several delays, 3 AGH went to France in April, but was broken up and the staff assigned to British hospitals. Sister Cuthbert served with 2 British Stationary England at Abbeville and transferred again to 3 AGH in September.
She returned to England on 17 January, 1919 and a week later was awarded the Royal Red Cross (Second Class), invested by the King at Buckingham Palace on 26 February and gazetted in Australia in Australia, 23 May. Head Sister Cuthbert embarked for return home on RMS Kashmir on 1 March, 1919 in charge of the nursing staff aboard the vessel and arrived 30 April.
Although there is no reference to her post-war service in her archive, she was assigned to No. 16 AGH at Mont Park, then along with 11 AGH in Caulfield the major military hospital in Melbourne and said to be housing around 1,000 patients.
Receipts for medals issued in 1922 place her as living with her mother in South Yarra and then a Nursing Sister at No. 11 AGH. Reports of a presentation to her of a silver tea service in May, 1938 suggested she had served at the “Repatriation Hospital” for more than twenty years.
Born Geelong, Church of England, died in Melbourne, 1963 at 85 years of age.
Her relationship to Mrs Borthwick is unknown, as indeed is any further relationship to Heidelberg. Mrs Borthwick’s name appears a handful of times in the Heidelberg News over the war years, invariably in relation to Patriotic Funds and prizes for the Coreen School.
She appears to have been Mrs Annette Marie Stuart Borthwick (nee Bertram), referenced in a Family Notice for her only daughter (probably only child) Agnes who died in Heidelberg in 1912, aged 23. Her husband, shown in Victorian registrations as Alexander Hay Borthwick was deceased at the time)
