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Overview
The Badge of the Royal Red Cross is awarded for exceptional services in military nursing. The award was established in 1883 by Queen Victoria. This one was awarded to nurse Edith Fairchild. Sister Fairchild served in Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.
The medal takes the shape of a cross, and is gold with red enamelled arms. On each arm is inscribed “Faith”, “Hope”, “Charity”, and “1883”.
Edith Fairchild
Edith Fairchild was born in Auckland on 17 July 1870, the third daughter of Captain John Fairchild and Mary Fairchild. She trained as a nurse at Addenbrokes Hospital, Cambridge, for three years and was appointed a staff nurse in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service in 1904. She served for sixteen years, working at various military hospitals in England and South Africa.
During the First World War Edith was posted to a base hospital in Boulogne, France, and was attached to one of the ambulance trains bringing the wounded from the front. Other postings were at the Military Hospital at Le Havre and the Belmont Hospital in Surrey. She was promoted to Acting Matron in 1916 and awarded the Royal Red Cross (First Class) in 1918.
Edith developed deep-seated varicose veins because of the stress and strains of her nursing duties, and in 1920 was deemed to be ‘permanently unfit’ for service. She retired with a disability pension and continued to live in England until about 1929, when she decided to move back to New Zealand and be nearer her relatives. Edith died in Greytown on 8 October 1944, age 74.
For more on Edith, see:
- Fairchild, Edith Maud, Online Cenotaph, Auckland Museum website.
- Fairchild, Edith Maud, Probate, Archives New Zealand, R23159709.
- Fairchild, Edith, Nursing Service Record, The National Archives, Kew, WO 399/2619.
- ‘People Talked About’, The New Zealand Graphic, 28 January 1905.
- ‘Personal’, Feilding Star, 5 June 1915.
- ‘Royal Red Cross’, Kai Tiaki: The Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand 11, no. 4 (1 October 1918).