Florence Vines operated the Shepton Private Hospital in Berwick, served in the Australian Army Nursing Service in World War One and later became a Chiropodist.
Florence was the twelfth and last child of Joshua and Mary (nee Nicholls) Vines and was born in Geelong in 1885. Her own mother, Mary, died ten years later at the age of 51 and her father died at the age of 72 in 1906. Florence attended Clarendon College in Ballarat and later undertook her three years of nursing training at Ballarat Hospital, completing her exams in 1908, as we can see from the results list below. (1).
Florence successfully completed the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses' Association exams in 1908.
Two weeks after the results were published, the
Ballarat Star reported that Florence and some of the other nurses from the Ballarat Hospital were granted the Hospital seal on their certificates. Florence was later to work with Kathleen Duigan
(2), who had also passed her examinations.
Granted the Hospital seal on their certificates.
In December 1913, Florence and her fellow Ballarat Hospital nurse, Kathleen Duigan, took over the management of Shepton, a small private hospital in Station Street (now Gloucester Avenue) Berwick from Nurse Grace Mary Dunphy (3).
Advertisement for Shepton Private Hospital
Florence joined the Australian Army Nursing Service at the age of 29 on June 25, 1915, leaving Kathleen to operate the hospital. Florence left Australia on July 17, 1915 on the HMAT Orsova (on the same day as Norah and Aileen Lehman, who I have written about, here.) Sister Vines was attached to the 2nd A.G.H at Harefield Park in England but suffered from various illnesses including dysentery and attacks of rheumatic fever and returned to Australian in December 1916 to convalesce. Florence re-embarked on June 12, 1917 for Salonika (now Thessaloniki) in Greece but was finally invalided back to Australia in April 1918 suffering from debility and colitis. She arrived on May 1, 1918 and was discharged on medical grounds in the August of that year (4).
Report of Nurse Vines leaving for the Front
Florence from a group photo of Nurses with our Expeditionary Reinforcements.
Group portrait of members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) most of whom embarked from Australia on the Orsova during July 1915, outside the Ivanhoe Hotel in London. Florence Vines is second from left, middle row.
A report of the 11th annual reunion of Clarendon College, Ballarat, paid this tribute to old collegian, Florence Vines and her nursing colleagues.
Florence did not return to the Shepton Private Hospital in Berwick after the War, although a visit was reported in the local paper, when her many friends were glad to welcome her. Kathleen Duigan, operated the hospital until 1920 (5).
Sister Vine visits Berwick after her return from the War.
The Electoral Rolls give us some details of her life and career after serving her country. In 1919 Florence was at the Army Base Hospital in St Kilda Road and over the years they note other addresses in Malvern, Armadale and the St Kilda area. In 1924, the Electoral Rolls list a change of career, to that of a Chiropodist, a profession she continued with until her retirement. In the 1930s she practiced at the upmarket department store, Georges of Collins Street.
Florence returns from twelve months abroad.
The Chappe Salon was based in Georges Department store in Collins Street.
Florence died on September 11, 1979 at the age of 94, at the Repatriation Hospital and was cremated at Springvale. Florence was a single woman, of
perennial cheerfulness (6) who had to make her own way in the world to support herself.
She was a well trained and hard working nursing sister, who along with her colleague, Kathleen Duigan, operated their hospital where they dealt with the whole range of medical issues from the birth of babies, nursing people back to health after operations and disease to the death of patients whose time had come. She served her country during World War One, nursing under tiring and trying conditions and on her return to Australia, Florence devoted herself to a new career as a Chiropodist.
Florence's death notice from The Age, September 13, 1979
Footnotes(1) Indexes to the Victorian Births, deaths and marriages; Clarendon College connection -
Ballarat Star, October 30, 1917, see here. (2) Kathleen Marie Lytton Duigan. The daughter of Charles Beamish and Frances Elizabeth (nee Graham) Duigan. She died September 27, 1954 aged 69. This short report tells us that her father was a doctor, as was her grandfather, so if is perhaps no surprise that Kathleen took up nursing as a profession.
(3) Grace Mary Dunphy. Grace established Shepton Private Hospital in 1910, according to Shire of Berwick Rate Books. She died April 18, 1948 at the age of 67, and her informative death notice lists her husband, William, whom she married in 1912; her son, and parents. After she left Berwick she operated
Kynaston Convalescent and Rest Home in Bambra Road, Caulfield with her sister, Sara Theresa Dunphy, who was also a nurse. A photograph of
Kynaston is
here.
(4) Attestation papers from the National Archives of Australia, see
here.
(5) In September 1920 she sold her
superior household furniture and effects, due to the fact she
was leaving the district, see the advertisement in the
South Bourke and Mornington Journal of September 9, 1920,
here.
(6)
South Bourke and Mornington Journal, July 8,1915, see here.
This is a revised and expanded version of a post, which I wrote and researched, that appears on my work blog,
Casey Cardinia Commemorates: Our War Years.
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