Mary Alice Sherriff served in the British India Nursing Service unit (1) of the Australian Imperial Forces, during World War One. Mary was born in Longwarry in 1890 to Alfred and Maria (nee Auchetto) Sherriff, the third of their eight children (2). Alfred was a blacksmith and had a business in Longwarry for seventeen years, before moving his business to Bunyip and later to Tynong. Maria operated a grocery and drapery store in Bunyip (3).
Mary completed her training at Warragul Hospital in May 1917, when she passed the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses Association examinations (4).
Nurse Sherriff was mentioned in this bereavement notice inserted in the Bunyip Free Press by Mr William Fawkner after the death of his wife (nee Hannah Owens), who died on August 11, 1915 after a lengthy illness that was borne with great fortitude (5). Mary obviously made an impression on the Fawkner family to be mentioned in the notice.
The only other reference I could find to Mary during her period of nursing training was an article in October 1915 in the West Gippsland Gazette (6) where she and some of her fellow nurses sold buttons, on Button Day, as a fund-raiser for the Warragul Hospital. On the Tuesday two nurses, Nurse Perry and Nurse Hawkins, had raised over £11 in Drouin and the report continues -
On Thursday, being market day at Warragul, another effort was made, with an even more gratifying result. Not that the people were any more generous than those of the sister town, but there were twice as many nurses, and consequently the total was correspondingly larger. Mr. C. Smyth, an enthusiastic supporter of the hospital kindly chaperoned the four ladies, viz., Sister McLeod, and Nurses Sherriff, Perry and West, brought them from the hospital in motor cars, entertained them at lunch and afternoon tea, and took them home again when their task was accomplished. All the buttons were sold (750), and several ladies and gentlemen gave their buttons back again to the nurses for re-sale. Not a single button was left. The financial record was as follows :
Nurses Sherriff £6 16 6
Nurse Perry 6 15 0
Sister McLeod 6 11 0
Nurse West 3 10 0
Total £23 12 6
Putting the whole amounts together, gives the grand total of £35 5s 6d for the two days' work.
The report said that the people were very generous in their responses to the winning allurements of the nurses (7).
Mary enlisted in the British India Nursing Service unit of the Australian Imperial Forces on February 27, 1918. She was aged 27 and her next of kin was her mother, Mrs M. A. Sherriff, of A'Beckett Street in Bunyip. Mary embarked on the Ormonde on March 7, 1918 for Bombay (as Mumbai was then called) and commenced duty at the Colaba War Hospital on May 1, 1918. Whilst she was serving at Colaba she was admitted to the Hospital suffering from small pox. Disease was an ever present danger to the Nurses and Soldiers who served overseas. In August, she was transferred to the Station Hospital at Barrackapore and in July 1919 to the 34th Welsh General Hospital at Deolali, a British Army Camp (8).
On November 17, 1919 Mary embarked from Bombay to Singapore on the S.S Dilwara, where she transferred to the S.S. Charon. She arrived in Fremantle on January 19, 1920 and then overlanded to Melbourne where she arrived on January 23. On her arrival in Melbourne Mary was accommodated at the Nurses' Hostel, Grand Hotel, Spring Street. The Grand Hotel is now the Windsor Hotel. Mary was discharged in September 1920 (9).
On January 28, 1922 Mary was married to Archibald Duncan of Black Rock (10). At the time of their marriage Archibald was working for the Victorian Railways and they moved to Newstead, near Castlemaine; then Maryborough and Sunbury and from around 1931, they lived at Chelsea (11). Archibald died November 1, 1957 and Mary in on January 28, 1984. They had five children - Don, Val, Bert, Brenda and Kevin. (12)
Footnotes
(1) The Australian War Memorial website has some information about Australian nursing in India during the First World War here https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/nursing-british-raj
(2) Alf and Maria were married in 1885 and their first child was born in Cranbourne, the last child in Bunyip and the rest were born in Longwarry. They were - Clifford Alfred (1885); Clarence Adrian (1888); Mary Alice (1890); Hilda Mason (1892); Irene May (1895); Eileen Maggie (1898); Albert Edward (1902) and Roy Arthur (1904). [Source: Indexes to the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages]
(3) Call of the Bunyip: History of Bunyip, Iona and Tonimbuk, 1847-1990 by Denise Nest (Bunyip History Committee, 1990);advertisements in the Bunyip & Garfield Express.
