FEGAN, Catherine Agnes

Catherine Agnes (Katie) Fegan was born in 1879, the second of Sergeant John and Mary Anne Fegan's two children and sister to Mary Sarah (b1875, later Sister Mary Xavier of the Religious Sisters of Charity, Fitzroy). On her enlistment form, she gave East Melbourne as her place of birth.

Katie's father John Fegan was drill instructor for the Victoria Mounted Police. She spent her early years at Victoria Barracks and in the police precinct in East Melbourne. John Fegan had served in the Royal Irish Constabulary and Her Majesty's Life Guards before coming to Australia in the late 1860s. He worked for the Melbourne Omnibus Company until accepted into the Victoria Police in 1873. Her mother, Mary Anne nee Stone had been born in Melbourne in 1851. 

John Fegan died aged 40 in 1885.  Left with daughters aged ten and six, Mary Anne remarried in 1887, the wedding notice in the Argus referring to her as 'widow of Sergeant John Fegan'. Her second husband James Francis Tobin was the publican at Meaghers Hotel in South Melbourne. The marriage was short-lived as Mary herself died aged 38 in 1892. Her estate, which comprised property, shares, bank accounts and jewellery, was valued at almost £5 000. She left it all to her two daughters Mary and Katie, then 17 and 13 respectively. By 1900, James Tobin's money had disappeared (he cited family illness and business losses) and he was declared insolvent. 

Around the time of their mother's death, Mary and presumably Katie moved to Kyneton, possibly to Fegan relations in the area. Both attended the Convent of Mercy there. Mary matriculated for the University of Melbourne in 1893 but entered the Religious Sisters of Charity in Fitzroy and was professed in 1896. She completed her nursing training in 1904 at St. Vincent's Hospital. 

Katie taught in the Mercy convent school (possibly music) and then followed her sister to St Vincent's Hospital to train in 1911. 

War Service

Katie enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) in August 1915. She was 35. In her unusual large hand and with precise detail, she set out her qualifications on the application form: training 1 August 1911 to 31 July 1914; 15 months in charge of casualty and outpatients, operating theatre, 1 month night superintendent, and four years and two weeks experience in executing medical orders. 

The local Kyneton paper proudly reported her acceptance for service abroad, adding 'Miss Fegan has won a high reputation as a nurse of more than average ability and skill' (Kyneton Guardian, 3.8.1915).

Katie enlisted and embarked for overseas in August 1915.  She sailed on the P&O liner RMS Morea, in the company of other army nurses, reinforcements for the 1st and 3rd Light Horse Brigades, and civilian passengers bound for London and ports in between.

Katie's service record contains some gaps and inconsistencies but there is enough detail to paint a broad picture of her war experience.

She reported for duty with 1 Australian General Hospital on 21 September 1915. The hospital was located in the magnificent Heliopolis Palace Hotel, and had been in operation since April. Within months, the sheer force of numbers of sick and wounded troops from the Gallipoli peninsula necessitated use of auxiliary sites, including Luna Park, the racecourse casino and a sporting club. Nurses were housed in Prince Ibrahim Khalim's Palace and Gordon House. (Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches, Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, 1992, p.34ff). The arrival of Katie Fegan and nurses on the 'Morea' would have brought the total number of AANS members at 1 AGH to around 230.Katie was attached to 1 AGH from September 1915 to 29 March 1916, at which point she was moved to the nearby 1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital on the Luna Park site. Her time there coincided with the 'bitter battle' between Matron Jane Bell and the hospital's commanding officer, Lt Col Ramsay Smith (Bassett, Guns and Brooches, p.37ff).

In July 1916, Katie Fegan was transferred to 3 Australian General Hospital which had been located on the outskirts of Cairo since its move from Lemnos in January 1916. By July, 3 AGH was functioning largely as a clearing station, assessing and processing  troops deemed unfit for service who were to be sent back to Australia. It was a large hospital (1 100 patients) but the nursing work was easier than in previous months. Moreover, 'there was much to do during time off, pyramids to climb, tombs to visit, feluccas in which to sail down the Nile, Luxor and Aswan to see, but the nurses chafed against the new [off duty] restrictions placed on them' (Bassett, Guns and Broaches, p. 58).

The fighting intensity moved to the Western Front and the hospitals followed from mid 1916. The 318 nurses in Egypt were steadily transferred to hospital units in England, France and India.  A new unit, 14 Australian General Hospital, was despatched from Australia to Egypt in August 1916 to take over medical care of Australian troops still in Egypt. Fegan was among a handful of staff nurses lent from 3 AGH to assist in the establishment of 14 AGH for several months. During that period, she spent five days in the Nurses Convalescent Home for an unspecified condition. 

Once 14 AGH was operational, Katie and the other 3 AGH nurses left Egypt for England, arriving on 26 December 1916. For much of 1917, she worked at 2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Southall and the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. Both hospitals would have provided excellent professional experience for an army nurse. 2 AAH specialised in treating troops with severely damaged or amputated limbs and in fitting them with prostheses. The Royal Victoria Hospital, a purpose-built military facility near Southampton, was recognised as Britain's foremost military hospital for treatment and research. 

In November 1917, Fegan was sent to 2 Australian General Hospital which was then located in Wimereux, near Boulogne in France. The hospital (1 290 bed capacity) had experienced an influx of casualties in October and November. Work was lighter in the following months but the struggle was against the bitter cold which forced the closure of tented wards. The hospital war diary recorded an influx of troops with machine gun bullets as fighting increased around Arras in March 1918, while in the following May came the first indications of what was to become a very serious health issue in the ensuring months - 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 caried 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. 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 Fegan 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 or the south of France. Fegan and eight other sisters and staff nurses were granted nine days leave for a pilgrimage to Lourdes. She then returned to England and reported to the Matron-in-Chief in mid March 1919.

After the War

Fegan did not return immediately to Australia. Instead, from May 1919 she studied at the London College of Music for six months, with the benefit of pay and subsistence allowance.

Katie Fegan returned to Melbourne on the Megantic in early 1920, and soon after joined the staff of Caulfield Military Hospital where she worked until she retired in 1939. She had been in indifferent health with a heart problem since at least 1937, prompting her to make a once-off application to the Edith Cavell Trust Fund for assistance (Catherine Agnes Fegan, Application, Edith Cavell Trust Fund, M290 NAA). 

She spent almost all her professional life nursing soldiers in war and in peace. 

Katie died at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne on 14 July 1951. Her funeral was held at St Patrick's Cathedral. Her sister Sister Mary Xavier outlived her, dying in 1954.

Katie Fegan featured in the East Melbourne Historical Society's 2015 exhibition, 'Gone to War as Sister: East Melbourne Nurses in the Great War'. Her panel can be seen at Gone to War as Sister - exhibition panel 16