In the Company of Nurses ─ The History of the British Army Nursing Service in the Great War

The untold story of the British Army Nursing Service during The Great War

Constructed from unpublished official and unofficial documents, letters and diaries of the time, this important volume tells the much-neglected story of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) during the First World War.

Yvonne McEwen's ground-breaking original research moves away from the long-held, uncritical, and overly-romanticised views of First World War nursing and addresses the professional, personal and political consequences that arose for nurses in the pivotal years from 1914 to 1918. This centenary volume is a vital contribution to the historiography of British military care-giving throughout this period and to the history of the Great War more generally.

Key Features:
Examines the humanitarian and legal challenges of casualty care
Highlights the management complexities of care-giving for the military
Discusses the physical and psychological health of nurses on active service
Lists the deaths within the ranks of the service
Examines wartime professional development, the Nurse Registration Bill, and equal rights for women

Yvonne McEwen is Project Director of Scotland's War 1914-1919 at the Centre for the Study of Modern Conflict, University of Edinburgh. She is the author of It's a Long Way to Tipperary: British and Irish Nurses in the Great War (2006) and co-editor of War, Journalism and History: War Correspondents in the Two World Wars (2012).