Introduction: three Gallin sisters AANS

Mary Josephine Gallin was the third of three Gallin sisters to enlist in the Australian Army Nursing Service in the Great War. Her younger sisters, Alice and Eleanor, enlisted in 1915.  Their eldest sister Mary Josephine joined in October 1917, soon after Alice’s brief return to Australia on troop transport duty which presumably inspired her decision.

The three sisters never served simultaneously in the same area or continent, but two worked in the same hospital on several occasions – Alice and Eleanor in Cairo, and Eleanor and Mary with 2 AGH in France in 1918 and early 1919.

Although brought up in country Victoria, the Gallin sisters had a strong connection with East Melbourne, notably through Elmore, the trained nurses home at 1101 Hoddle St operated for some years by another Gallin sister, Annie (Mrs Kelly).

Before the War

Mary Josephine Gallin (1869–1940) was the second of seven daughters born to Patrick Gallin (c1832–87) and his wife Mary (nee Murray or Murry, c1827–1913). The couple also had one son, John. Patrick was an Irishman from Co. Armagh who had probably arrived in the colony of Victoria not long before he married Mary in 1859. Her origins are uncertain (Irish?), but various entries by that name on shipping lists suggest she too may have not been long in the colony before her marriage.

Birth registrations put the couple as living the Sunbury/Keilor area north of Melbourne in the 1860s and until the mid 1870s. By 1878, the family was in Marong near Bendigo. This small agricultural and mining community of 134 (1881 census) had an established state school, a Roman Catholic church and a railway station – all facilities important to the Gallins. Both Patrick and Mary Gallin worked for the Victorian Railways, from 1884 at least, Patrick as a line repairer and Mary as a gatekeeper.

Patrick Gallin died in a workplace accident in 1887. Walking back to retrieve his tools, he fell in the darkness and was lying critically injured when his wife found him.  ‘He blamed no one for the accident, and there could be no blame attachable to the Railway Commissioners’ (Bendigo Advertiser, 2.5.1887, p3).

Gallin left his widow and eight children ranging in age from 24 to about 9. Her son John was a railway porter. Two daughters (Catherine b1871) and Margaret (b1862) married, the latter at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne with a notice in the paper. The marriage seems to have been annulled (i.e. deemed not to happen) as by 1903 Margaret had resumed the name ‘Gallin’ and her occupation as a nurse.

Margaret was the first of five of the Gallin sisters to train as a nurse. She completed her two year certificate at the Melbourne Hospital in 1883, her registration with the Victorian Trained Nurses Association in 1902. Mary, Eleanor, Alice and Annie followed.

Margaret seems to have been apart from the family, perhaps because of her marital status.  

The other sisters who were nurses had a strong East Melbourne connection. Annie Kelly (nee Gallin) operated Elmore, the trained nurses home and hospital located at 1101 Hoddle St (corner of George St) from 1904 until her death in 1913. (The 10 room residence with garden had been let in 1890 (Argus, 8.1.1890, p1) and appears to have become a hospital from that time on. The electoral rolls show variously Mrs Kelly, her husband Francis, and sister Mary living at Elmore or just doors away.

Mrs Mary Gallin, their mother, died at the hospital in 1905. In her will (which she signed with a mark ‘by reason of her illiterateness’), she left her small estate (under £100) to her three spinster daughters who, she stated, all resided at 1101 Hoddle St: Elenor [sic] Bridget, Alice Matilda and Agnes Cecilia (a tailoress who died in 1912). (According to the electoral rolls for 1909 and 1914, Eleanor’s address was 31 Collins Place, Melbourne.)

In June 1913, Annie Kelly herself died aged 52. Mary continued to run Elmore until 1917 when the business was sold (UNA, Vol XI (11), 30.1.1914, p289, XV (9), 30.11.1917). With their parents and two sisters dead, another sister (Catherine) married and Margaret apparently estranged, Alice, Eleanor and Mary had a profession and independence.

They enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service, first Alice and then Eleanor in 1915, and then in 1917 Mary (who had to adjust her age to meet requirements). 

War Service

Mary gave her age on enlistment as 45, the maximum age to enter the AANS. In fact she was 48 (her birth was registered in 1869). Her motivation was probably two-fold, money and persuasion. Firstly, the sale of ‘Elmore’ hospital (previously her home and employment) may have reduced her means, a factor suggested by Eleanor’s allotment of 2/6 per day from her own pay for Mary (Eleanor Gallin, Service Record). Secondly, Alice’s brief return to Melbourne in May 1917 on transport duty following duty with 1 Australian General Hospital in Egypt and 1 Australian Casualty Clearing Station was the likely catalyst (Alice’s two bouts of illness notwithstanding).

Mary sailed for the United Kingdom on HMAT ‘Aeneas’, disembarking on Boxing Day, 26 December 1917. After leave, she was sent to 1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Harefield which had around 700-800 patients. One of its primary functions was to prepare sick and wounded troops for return to Australia, so work involved a continuous process of admissions and discharges.

Mary arrived in the depth of winter. The hospital’s gas and water pipes froze several times in January 1918, putting latrines and shower baths out of action for varying periods of time. Air raid warnings were also common, necessitating the switching off of all lights on occasion.  Nursing was not easy (War Diary, 1 AAH, AWM 4/26/72).

On 31 August 1918, Mary was transferred to 2 Australian General Hospital in Wimereux, near Boulogne in France. Her sister Eleanor had been serving there since October 1917.

The hospital (1 290 bed capacity) had experienced an influx of casualties at various intervals in 1917–18 and a few early cases of influenza. The threat of air raids prompted extensive sandbagging and trench digging in the summer of 1918. When the raids eventuated, the matron reported that 'the nurses behaved with perfect calmness, and carried out their duties without flurry or excitement' (War Diary, August 1918).

In late August 1918, the Allied push on the Somme generated another rush of casualties – hence Gallin’s posting. 2 AGH took only stretcher cases. There was heavy pressure on its beds, and a high rate of evacuations was necessary to keep beds clear for another onslaught of admissions. That month, medical officers and nurses treated bullet and shell wounds, gas poisoning, spinal and head injuries, and dealt with another short-lived influenza outbreak. 

Influenza loomed again in October, when the hospital commanding officer reported its management and control were his 'greatest anxiety'. The matron reported patients were helpless, 'utterly prostrated by the disease'. The nursing staff wore gowns and masks and insisted on ward ventilation, and most managed to remain free of the illness.

The extent of the influenza problem, combined with the arrival of winter, virtually overshadowed news of the Armistice on 11 November. 'News of Armistice being agreed received,' the CO wrote, 'Very wet and cold. Extra blankets issued' (War Diary, entry for 11.11.1918). Hostilities might have ceased but the work remained very heavy. 

By December 1918, the number of patients was dropping and the influenza epidemic abating. The medical officers undertook refresher courses at other hospitals. For Gallin and her colleagues, nursing work became easier in some ways but more difficult in others. Ambulant patients confined indoors by winter weather made it harder to keep wards clean and tidy, reported the matron, while her nurses needed 'much tact and wisdom' to deal with restless patients impatient to be repatriated home (War Diary, December 1918).  

No new patients were admitted from 11 February, and the hospital emptied as existing patients were evacuated. The nursing staff began transferring to England from mid February. Many took leave in Paris – Gallin among them – or the south of France. She then returned to England and reported to the Matron-in-Chief in mid March 1919.

After the War

Mary Gallin remained in England during the first half of 1919, working at 2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Southall (London) which specialized in treating soldiers with amputated limbs and fitting them with prostheses, and at 3 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Dartford (Kent). 3AAH was a large hospital with 1400 patients, many of them with ‘nerves’ and shell shock. In a medical examination in May 1919 she declared she was ‘perfectly well’ and she was deemed fit for general service.

Mary returned to Australia with troops (some with dependents) on the transport SS ‘Main’, disembarking in Melbourne on 11 October 1919. The Argus noted the frustrations of the return, with delays in Durban due to engine trouble and Adelaide due to bad weather (Argus, 13 October 1919, p6). She was the last of the three Gallin sisters to arrive back in Australia.

Mary was by then 50 years of age. 

According to the electoral rolls from the 1920s and 1930s, Mary and Eleanor lived in rooms at Rochester Lodge initially at 35 Collins Place and later at 79 Flinders Lane. Both gave their occupations as nurses. Presumably they worked in the several private hospitals in the vicinity.

Mary suffered bouts of illhealth in the 1920s and 1930s. The Edith Cavell Trust assisted her on several occasions, providing small grants (£10) for rest (M J Gallin, Application, Edith Cavell Trust Fund, M291 NAA).

Mary died in Melbourne on 14 July 1940, just four months after her oldest sister Margaret. The ‘Catholic Press’ (Sydney) reported that ‘the nursing profession in Victoria lost a distinguished member’, noting the tradition of nurses in her family (Catholic Press, 25.7.1940, p14). 

Alice, Eleanor and Mary Gallin featured in the East Melbourne Historical Society's 2015 exhibition 'Gone to War a Sister: East Melbourne Nurses in the Great War'. Their panel can be seen at Gallin sisters: exhibition panel 9