Erica Valletort Edgcumbe (1889-1955)

Erica Valletort Edgcumbe’s period of active service was brief but when her story is expanded to encompass her wider life before, during and after the war, it takes on a wider significance. The family, which had come from early pioneer stock on the Edgcumbe side, was active, well-known and popular in the local Healesville community before the war. The war brought major changes in their pleasant country life. Erica’s elder brother, among the first to enlist, was killed at Gallipoli leaving their mother grief stricken. Her parents nonetheless gave their remaining 18 year old son their consent to enlist, and then she herself joined the Australian Army Nursing Service to serve overseas. The Edgcumbe experience was by no means unique but it is illustrates powerfully the impact of the Great War on one family.

Before the War

Erica Edgcumbe was one of five children and the second daughter born to Adolphus Valletort Edgcumbe (c1852–1918) and his wife, Eliza Helen (nee Jordan) (1860–1943). Adolphus’s forebears were presumably at least distantly related to the Edgcumbe nobility and certainly preserved family names such as Valletort. His grandfather Henry Edgcumbe (1800–82) had been an early participant in the struggling Swan River settlement in Western Australia in 1829, before moving to Van Dieman’s Land in 1830. There he established an agricultural implements business in Launceston, bought land in the Deloraine area and prospered.

His sons Adolphus (unnamed on the birth registration) and Francis moved to the colony of Victoria where both were living c1880 and running hotels. When he married in 1885, Adolphus was running a successful hotel in Healesville. His wife, Eliza, was the daughter of James Jordan, a Londoner who had been living in South Melbourne since at least the mid 1850s. He was a successful merchant who left an estate of around £6000 when he died, a Gentleman, in 1903 (James Jordan, Probate Administration and Will, 1903 [PROV])

As proprietors of a successful hotel business perfectly placed between Melbourne and picturesque Marysville, Adolphus and Eliza were well-known and popular local identities. They replaced the historic old wooden structure with a two story brick edifice commanding Nicholson St, and hosted the colonial governor and his wife when they passed through (Evelyn Observer, 9.4.1886, p2). Newspaper reports show Adolphus was active in local activities including the shire council and sporting clubs, while his business interests included the hotel, a mining venture and a fruit and vegetable store. His wife was well-received for her piano accompaniment in school concerts.

Adolphus and Eliza had five children in Healesville: Muriel Charlotte (b c1886), Erica Valletort (b1889), James Adolphus (b1891), Ruth Marjorie (b1893) and John Larwill (b1898). They were educated locally in various schools, state and private, and school prizes were the order of the day. Erica, for example, won the 6^th form prize in 1902 at St John’s Day School while youngest brother John was dux of Healesville College in 1905 (Healesville and Yarra Glen Guardian, 11.4.1903, p2; 16.12.905, p2).

Around 1905, the family purchased a property in Paradise Valley, near Gembrook, where Eliza Edgcumbe ran a guesthouse for visitors and tourists. 

Around 1914, Erica began training as a nurse at the Homeopathic Hospital in St Kilda Rd, Melbourne. Her elder sister Muriel was also a nurse. She completed the requirements for the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses Association in May 1917 (Ballarat Courier, 7.6.1917, p5).

She enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in October 1918.

War Service

Erica was the third member of her immediate family to service overseas with the AIF. While her period of service was only a matter of months, it is interesting to set her decision in the context of the Great War’s impact on her family.

Her brother James Adolphus Edgcumbe had been among the first Australians to enlist and the first to be killed (James Edgcumbe, Service Record [NAA]). The tall 23 year old accountant signed up on 19 August 1914, a fortnight after war broke out, and embarked with the 7^th Battalion two months later. After training and camping in Egypt he was part of the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. He was shot and killed in the water between his landing boat and the shore.

The effect on the family was profound. It was more than a year before his parents and siblings knew his fate. He was at first reported wounded not seriously, but without word from him they seized on the faint hope he had been captured. His distraught family pursued the army and then their parliamentarian for information and clarification, then finally heard that a court of enquiry in France on 5 June 1916 concluded he had been killed in action at the landing on 25 April 1915. In February 1917, his mother requested his personal effects from the army, having been too ill to do so before. She received his volume of Shakespeare's plays, bible, his glasses and other small items. Over the next few years, she received a trickle of other items: his three service medals and the scroll and memorial plaque.

Knowing his final fate was perhaps better than the unbearable suspense. The family may not have had confirmation until early November, when they placed death notices in the press (e.g. Argus, 4.11.16, p11). Meanwhile, with his parents’ permission, James’s 18 year old brother John formally enlisted in June 1916 (John Larwill Edgcumbe, Service Record [NAA]). He embarked in January 1917.

John Larwill Edgcumbe joined the Australian Flying Corps and trained as a wireless operator. Based in France he served with the 4^th and 3^rd Squadrons, flying in Sopwith camels on reconnaissance sorties, bombing raids and leaflet drops over Flanders and Germany in 1917 and 1918. There is no mention of illness or injury in his service record.

By 1916 or 1917, Erica Edgcumbe, the second surviving daughter, had likely determined to enlist herself. While the formal date of her enlistment in the Australian Army Nursing Service was October 1918, she would already have nursed returned sick and wounded Australian troops in one or more of Melbourne’s repatriation or base hospitals, a requirement for AANS going abroad for a good part of the war. (See Kirsty Harris, ‘Two heads are better than one’: Melbourne as the Hub of Australian Army Nursing Administration in World War 1, Victorian Historical Journal, Vol 83 (2), Nov 2012).

Twenty-nine year old Erica Edgcumbe embarked for overseas service in Sydney on 14 October 1918. She sailed on the ‘Wyreema’, a coastal steamer abruptly requisitioned by the Australian Government to the chagrin of North Queenslanders who protested at lost services (Brisbane Courier, 4.10.1918 p 8).  There were 700 troops and 46 nurses aboard, most of the latter intended as reinforcements for hospitals in Salonika. The ship and its contingent left Sydney with great fanfare, perhaps a sign of optimism that hostilities would shortly cease (Sydney Morning Herald, 15.10.18, p6). (Two other East Melbourne connected nurses, Edith Cecil and Annie Purcell, were also aboard.)

The magazine from part of the voyage survives, The Wyreemian : the magazine of the ship's company of H.M.A.T. Wyreema, Nov. 7th, 1918 (NLA, accessed online). A compilation of serious, poignant and funny pieces, it conveys something of the ship’s diverse company and a myriad of activities on board including boat drill, boxing competitions, concerts and a topical debate (‘Terms of Peace as Embodied in President Wilson’s 14 Points’).  In a reflective piece entitled ‘Why we came late’, an anonymous contributor considered an unspoken accusation that they were late comers to a conflict now on the verge of ending. From the ages of the men aboard (predominantly under 20 or middle aged family men), he concluded they were by no means lacking in patriotism: ’95 per cent of those here have come at the earliest possible moment that could be managed’ (Wyreemian, p12).  

There were several brief references to the nurses. Their presence had a positive effect, the commanding officer enthused, contributing to the voyage being a ‘a cheerful one’ (Wyreemian, p2).

The Wyreemian was printed in Capetown, ‘the first suitable port of call’. Ingenious methods may have been used as officially, Capetown was off limits to troops landing because of the influenza epidemic. Presumably supplied were loaded and some business conducted. The ship returned to Australia and reached Albany, WA in mid December. Some of the nurses aboard were posted to care for influenza-stricken troops at Woodman's Point. After a period of quarantine, 'Wyreema' sailed on to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney where the troops and passengers disembarked at their respective ports.

Erica Edgcumbe disembarked in Melbourne on 21 December 1918, and was discharged from the AANS from 4 January 1919. She had been on active service just ten weeks, during with the Armistice was signed and the ship recalled.

Her brother John was not repatriated back to Australia until June 1919.

After the War

When Erica and John Edgcumbe returned home after the war, their family was very different from what it had been a decade earlier. Ruth, their sister, had died in 1913 aged 20. James, their elder brother, had been confirmed killed in action at Gallipoli after 18 months of uncertainty that grievously affected their mother’s health. Their father Adolphus had died in 1918, aged 66, and their widowed mother was moving from Paradise Valley in the Dandenongs to the city. Their sister Muriel was living and working as a nurse in Kew.

Like many nurses who served overseas in the war, Erica had not finished with travelling. In July 1919, she left Melbourne with five other nursing sisters bound for India on the SS Soudan (Recorded as Sister Edgecome [sic]. Victoria. Index to Outward Passengers to Interstate, UK, NZ, and Foreign Ports [PROV]). It is not clear whether they were connected with a mission, a hospital, or an association for nursing British expats, nor whether Edgcumbe’s imperative was professional or religious (her parish of St Peter’s Eastern Hill encouraged women as nurses and missionaries). Edgcumbe remained in India until late 1920 when she travelled to London, in a 1^st class cabin, probably as a nurse for a family with children (Erica Valletort Edgcumbe, UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960). Her sojourn in London was brief: she returned to Australia early in 1921, this time 2^nd class. Her mother gave a small party at the St Kilda Palais to welcome her home (Table Talk, 11.3.1921, p6).

By the mid 1920s, Erica Edgcumbe was working with the bush nursing movement in Werribee, south west of Melbourne. Like many Great War nurses, she also trained in the burgeoning infant health field. She may well have been influenced by Annie Purcell, a leader in the movement, a Great War nurse and fellow St Peter’s parishioner who too had been in India after the war. Edgcumbe was highly regarded and much valued (Werribee Shire Banner, 17.6.1926, p5). She, her brother John and mother all moved to Werribee.

When John’s health declined and he was advised to follow an outdoor life, the family relocated to Plenty, north of Melbourne, and John became a noted authority on poultry farming (Australasian, 1.6.1935, p48). Presumably Erica, whose name appears with his on the electoral roll, nursed in the local area.

Erica and her elderly mother moved back to Melbourne after John died in 1936. She then moved into the other field in which many Great War nurses worked, nursing wounded and sick returned service personnel. She worked and lived at the Repatriation Hospital, Caulfield for at least a decade.

Erica Edgcumbe died in Montrose outside Melbourne in 1955. Her probate papers identified her as a ‘Gentlewoman’. She outlived all her siblings, none of whom had married. She was buried like other family members in the Melbourne General Cemetery.