大象传媒

鈥楬er coolness under fire made her exceptional.鈥�

When war broke out Liskeard nurse Dorothy Penrose Foster volunteered to join Queen Alexandra鈥檚 Military Imperial Nursing Service and was despatched across the Channel with the British Expeditionary Force to Belgium.

Dorothy moved between a number of casualty stations close to the front line as well as working on hospital trains transferring casualties to safer places or back home to Britain.

Dorothy鈥檚 letters reveal her strength of character and determination to protect those in her care. In a letter to General Hospital in Boulogne she writes:

鈥淒ear Miss Brown I have been intending to write to you for some time but you will thoroughly realise how one postpones these things when one has very little time off duty. You will have heard what a busy time we have all had. At first it was tremendous when we came to Boulogne but things have sorted themselves out and so many hospitals have been formed that there is not the same rush. At the same time we have long hours and are hard at it while on duty. We often think of you and wonder whether it was more strenuous in South Africa and having been in camp at St Nazaire, we realise how cold you must have been in the winter. 鈥� (Dorothy Penrose Foster, 22 November 1914 鈥� letter extract courtesy of National Archives).

Local historians believe Dorothy鈥檚 story is one of several local examples of female fortitude.

Anna Monks from Liskeard Museum says: 鈥淲hat we鈥檝e noticed with some of our stories of women in this area is that we seem to have bred in this part of Cornwall some really stoic and sensible women who like nothing better than a challenge. At the beginning of the war she鈥檚 writing endless letters to Whitehall asking for extra coats, jumpers and other clothes which her nurses are missing. She had a very long correspondence about her pay which seems constantly to be in arrears. She writes very briskly about what鈥檚 going on whereas her father back in Liskeard is writing letters to the war office, asking to send his poor frail daughter home because she couldn鈥檛 possibly cope with this war.鈥�

Dorothy Foster proved her father wrong.

She received six medals including the 1914 Star, The British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal commonly known as 鈥楶ip鈥�, 鈥楽queak鈥� and 鈥榃ilfred鈥� in the trade.

Unusually for a woman, Dorothy gained two extra medals: the Red Cross Medal received for her excellent and outstanding nursing services; and even more rare, she became one of just a few female recipients of the Military Medal 鈥� awarded to people for showing great courage in war on active service.

Anna explains: 鈥淚n most cases it is awarded to men. It鈥檚 very unusual for a woman to receive the military medal.鈥�

Location: Trevillis House, Lodge Hill, Liskeard, Cornwall PL14 4EN
Image: Dorothy Foster, courtesy of Liskeard Museum

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