DICKINSON, Ruby Droma

Ruby Droma Dickinson

Ruby Droma Dickinson (1885–1945) served with the Australian Army Nursing Service in Egypt and later in Greece at Salonika. (She is not to be confused with Ruby Dickinson, AANS, from NSW, who died of pneumonia in hospital in Southwell Gardens, London in June 1918.)

Ruby Droma Dickinson was Victorian born, daughter of teacher Samuel Broadbent Dickinson, and sister of Sydney Rushbrook Dickinson, a noted educator in Victoria. She passed the matriculation exams for Melbourne University but looking after her aging parents may have thwarted plans for university. She trained as a nurse at the Melbourne Hospital from c1913–16.

She enlisted in 1917 and that October disembarked in Egypt. She nursed at No 21 General Hospital (British) in Alexandria until she was transferred in mid 1918 to Salonika in Greece. She was one of several hundred Australian nurses under Australian matrons in British hospitals treating thousands of cases of malaria and dysentery among troops and prisoners of war. Like most nurses at Salonika, she succumbed to illness but recovered without needing repatriation.

Ruby Droma Dickinson returned to Australia in August 1919. Her health was troublesome, and she had a small Repatriation Department pension from at least 1920. She continued nursing for a time in the mothercraft field and spent extended periods in England.

Dickinson died unexpectedly during a visit to Hobart in May 1945 and was buried there in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery.

Ruby Droma Dickinson is commemorated at St Peter’s Church Eastern Hill, East Melbourne among parishioners who served in the Great War of 1914–1918.

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Ruby Droma Dickinson (1885–1945) was born in Geelong to Samuel Broadbent Dickinson (1849–1907) and his wife Louisa nee Rushbrook (c1852–1902).

Both her paternal grandfather James Dickinson (Dickenson) and maternal grandfather Francis Rushbrook arrived in the Australian colonies as convicts.

Paternal grandfather Dickinson (d1888) had been convicted of stealing and transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1838, then granted a conditional pardon in 1843. He went on to have a remarkable life in both Tasmania and Victoria, most notably as an expert horticulturalist (Leader [Melbourne], 4.2.1888, p14; Douglas Wilkie, ‘The Life and Loves of Eugene Rossiet Lennon’, Papers and Proceedings: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Vol 58 (1) April 2011, p78-99).

Rushbrook (1828–1893) was also convicted of stealing but pardoned during his prison term for agreeing to spend the remaining period in Australia. He arrived in the colony of Victoria in 1847 and married Frances Wray in Geelong in 1851 who died in 1866. He later married her sister Emily; she died in childbirth in 1877. Francis was a successful storekeeper in Geelong, sheep grazier on Yan Yurt Station near Birregurra and later a station owner in Queensland. He died in Geelong in 1893.

It is very possible that neither Dickinson or Rushbrook ever mentioned their past to their children.

Samuel Broadbent Dickinson had been born in Tasmania and brought up mainly in or near Portarlington in Victoria, the Dickinson home from the mid 1850s. In 1875, he married Louisa Rushbrook, daughter of Francis and Frances. Samuel was a school teacher by profession, following in the footsteps of his brother-in-law Eugene who was well known as an educator in Geelong and his sister Sarah (Eugene’s wife) who ran a school for girls in Geelong (Wilkie, 'Life and Loves of Eugene Rossiet Lennon').

Samuel Dickinson taught in various schools around Victoria. He was head teacher of Stratford state school in 1890, Ballan state school in 1894 and then Eureka Street state school in Ballarat in the late 1890s (Bendigo Advertiser, 21.7.1890, p2; Bacchus Marsh Express, 20.1.1894, p2; Ballarat Star, 6.6.1896, p2).

Samuel and his wife Louisa had three children who survived infancy, all born in or near Geelong: Sydney Rushbrook, (1877–1949), Ruby Droma (1878–1945) and Hebert Lawson  (1881–1956). All three likely attended schools run by their father for at least part of their education, and perhaps the co-education Grenville College in Ballarat (Ballarat Star, 12.11.1898, p4).

Sydney and Ruby proved to be outstanding students. Sydney, a teacher at Ballarat High School, graduated from the University of Melbourne in the late 1890s ‘without attending University lectures’ (Ballarat Star, 12.11.1898, p2) – the first steps in a distinguished career as a classical scholar and educator in New Zealand and New Zealand (Age, 2.4.1949, p4).

Ruby passed the matriculation examinations for the university in 1896 under the tutelage of Miss J E Kennedy BA but she seems not to have attended university (Ballarat Star, 6.6.1896, p2). As the only daughter she would have been expected to keep house and care for her parents. Around 1900, the family moved from Ballarat to Melbourne where Samuel became head teacher of the Boundary Road School. In 1902 Louisa died after ‘much tribulation’ (Argus 25.10.1902, p9), suggesting a long illness. Ruby lived with her father until he too died after an illness in 1907, aged 58. He left her his entire estate, worth almost £400. (Samuel Broadbent Dickinson, Will and Probate Administration [Public Records Office of Victoria]).

By 1907, her brothers had left home. Sydney was at the Leslie House School in Hobart operated by the progressive educator Samuel Clemes, and was soon to marry the headmaster’s daughter (William N. Oats, 'Clemes, Samuel (Sammy) (1845–1922)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/clemes-samuel-sammy-5683/text9603, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 28 September 2016). Ruby’s younger brother Herbert was a clerk in the Victorian Railways and also about to marry.

Ruby too set out on her own path in her early 30s. By 1912, she had moved to ‘Warrenbayne’ in Bairnsdale, the home of the local doctor Dr Charles Alsop (Australian Electoral Roll). Alsop and his wife had six children, all born between 1900 and 1912 (Victoria Births Deaths and Marriage). Ruby’s home duties would have included caring for the children and perhaps teaching them. In 1913, however, she returned to Melbourne, took up nursing at the Melbourne Hospital and was confirmed into the Church of England at St Peter’s Eastern Hill. The Alsop family may well have been influential on both counts, on the one hand by exposing her to the work of a local doctor and on the other by introducing her (with a Presbyterian background) to the Church of England as Mrs Alsop was the daughter of the Dean of Melbourne.

Dickinson was confirmed at high Church St Peter’s Eastern Hill East Melbourne in 1913. St Peter's had a number of nurses in its congregation because of the nearby hospitals in the city and East Melbourne. Many belonged to its branch of the Guild of St Barnabas which provided them with regular devotional and social activities.

Ruby Dickinson completed her Melbourne Hospital Certificate in 1916, and registration with the Victorian Trained Nurses Association in 1917.

War Service

Ruby joined the Australian Army Nursing Service in July 1917, having spent the mandatory period of home service nursing repatriated sick and wounded troops in Melbourne. Born in 1878, she was 39 but gave her age on her enlistment form as 32. She declared herself Church of England, and gave as her next of kin her brother Sydney, by then a headmaster in New Zealand, c/- her other brother Herbert, living in Mentone.

She was the only member of her immediate family to enlist in the AIF.

Ruby Droma Dickinson embarked for overseas from Sydney with a contingent of 60 nurses under the leadership of Matron Jessie Gemmell. They were the last of four units destined for Salonika in Greece under the overall command of Matron Jessie McHardie White who had sailed a month earlier on RMS Mooltan.

McHardie White’s matrons and nurses on the Mooltan had reached Salonika via Egypt in July 1917. By the time Gemmell and her nurses, including Dickinson, reached Egypt that October, the war situation had changed with a major offensive on the Sinai Peninsula. Her nurses were distributed to several British hospitals in Egypt and Gemmell herself was appointed assistant matron of the 70^th [British] General Hospital. A furious McHardie White demanded an explanation, which met with a polite and firm response from Gemmell (see Rupert Goodman, Our War Nurses: The History of the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps 1902–1988, pp90-91).

Ruby Droma Dickinson was sent for duty to No 21 General Hospital in Alexandria, a British facility in the Ras El Tin Egyptian army barracks. She nursed British and Australian troops wounded in the Sinai campaign as well as those suffering from highly infectious diseases such as diarrhea and scarlet fever. Seven weeks after joining the unit, she herself succumbed to scarlet fever and was hospitalised for five weeks.

In June 1917, Dickinson and other nurses from Cairo and Alexandria were sent to Salonika in Greece, their original intended destination. She described the journey as taking 11 days, though other nurses on the ship recalled 4-5 days. Recalling it after the war, Dickinson commented, ‘Naturally it was a very merry trip up, as submarines were reported in the vicinity’ (Dickinson, R D, in Matron Kellett Interviews, AWM 41/1072, Australian War Memorial). Fortunately none were sighted.

They joined the Australians already there – Matrons Ethelda Uren and Jessie McHardie White and several hundred members of the AANS who staffed British General Hospitals in Salonika.

She was almost overwhelmed on arrival in Salonika, ‘a very dirty place indeed, and most cosmopolitan, and I think I saw every uniform under the sun’ (Dickinson, Kellett interview).

While 100 kilometres from fighting, Salonika was a notoriously difficult posting. The patients, mainly British ‘tommies’, suffered from severe malaria and dysentery. Many wards were tented which made for very challenging nursing in the environment. Dickinson described the patients as ‘depressed [and] lethargic’, very different from her patients in Egypt (Dickinson, Kellett interview). The climate consisted of extremes of heat and cold, with limited supplies of water in summer and fuel in winter. As Dickinson wrote, this meant many missed baths in summer (‘which to an Australian nurse is a very great discomfort’) and cold in the winter (‘There is not enough fuel to keep fires burning any length of time’ (Dickinson, Kellett interview). She found the nurses’ billets in tents very comfortable until she encountered the ferocious ‘vardar’ winds which made it a challenge to keep personnel, patients and tents upright. She described the vardar as ‘terrible, in fact, so trying at times we were nearly blown off our feet. It was with the utmost care that we kept the tents up at all’ (Dickinson, Kellett interview).

The Salonika environs did offer compensations. Spring was almost indescribably beautiful, with intoxicating fields of cornflowers and a climate ideal for sightseeing and picnics. Matron McHardie White and other nurses in their accounts describe a place which was almost Jekyll and Hyde like in its contrasts (Kellett Interviews).

Like most nurses on Salonika, Dickinson spent time in various hospitals staffed by Australians matrons and nurses and British doctors. She was initially attached to 60 General Hospital, a 1600 bed tented facility run by Matron Uren situated at Hortiach in the hills above the town. It was just operational when they arrived, recently established and initially not well-equipped (Horwood, C A, Kellett interviews). Her patients were mainly surgical patients, although many contracted malaria post-operatively. Lack of water and equipment made sterilization challenging. Language barriers were also a challenge, as many of the patients were Bulgarian or Turkish. For a time the food was restricted to rations, small quantities of bully beef and hard biscuits.

Given the circumstances, it is scarcely surprising that many Australian nurses who served at Salonika became ill with malaria and/or dysentery. Sixty at least were repatriated back to Australia via England because their health failed. Dickinson escaped these illnesses but soon after she arrived was hospitalised with debility (Ruby Droma Dickinson, Service Record [NAA]).

In October 1918, Dickinson was transferred to 42 General Hospital on Salonika. This facility for patients with dysentery had been moved several times – from a muddy field condemned for horses to another site on the edge of a ravine swarming with mosquitoes and back to the original location. Dickinson spent three months there and was promoted to temporary sister.

Around the time Dickinson arrived in Salonika, her family received news that Staff Nurses Ruby Dickinson had died. The information was duly entered in the parishioner’s address book at her church, St Peter’s Eastern Hill. Her family were notified of the error by urgent telegram (Ruby Droma Dickinson, Service Record).

The Armistice was declared on 11 November 1918. Dickinson left Salonika on 5 February 1919, and disembarked at Southampton ten days later.

After the War

Dickinson did not return immediately to Australia, but remained in England for another five months (Ruby Droma Dickinson, Service Record). The first two months were variously described as leave without pay for unspecified family reasons and for nonmilitary employment. Returning from leave, she was sent to 3 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Dartford to nurse while awaiting repatriation to Australia. There she would have prepared patients, many of whom were suffering ‘shell shock’ and ‘nerves’, for their return to Australia.

Ruby Droma Dickinson returned to Australia on the SS Norman, arriving with hundreds of Victorian troops in Melbourne on 18 August 1919.

She was discharged from the AANS in April 1920 as permanently unfit due to pyelitis.

Dickinson’s problematic health on her return had resulted in a repatriation pension of £1.13.6 per week in 1920, later reduced to £1.1.0 per week. Illhealth and consequent lack of income prompted her to apply several times to the Edith Cavell Trust Fund for sick and needy army nurses between 1920 and 1924. The Fund granted her assistance of £10 or £15 on each occasion (Ruby Droma Dickinson, Application, Edith Cavell Trust Fund, M291 [NAA]).  

She was however well enough to return to nursing. Dickinson was one of many Great War nurses who added midwifery and/or infant welfare qualifications to increase their employment options. In 1922, she sought a grant from the Edith Cavell Trust Fund  for income during her period of training (Edith Cavell Trust Fund, M291 [NAA]). She was registered as a midwife in Victoria from 1923 to 1928.

For much of the 1920s and 1930s, Dickinson used as her base Sydney Dickinson’s home and school, Haileybury College in South Road, Brighton. Her brother Sydney had returned from New Zealand where he had set up two major Presbyterian schools, Scots College in Wellington and St Andrew’s College in Christchurch, during the war. When he retired to Mornington in 1942, she moved her base there.

Dickinson’s health and circumstances had improved sufficiently by 1925 for her to travel to England when she remained until late 1929 (UNA, XXIII (3), 1.5.1925, p70, XXVIII (4), 1.4.1930, p114). Later that year, she moved to Tasmania for a year where she pursued qualifications and experience in the Plunket or Truby King system of mothercraft nursing (UNA, XXIX (11), 1.11.1931, p337). At the end of 1931, she applied once more to the Edith Cavell Trust Fund for assistance as she had again been ill and a holiday was advised; she received £15.

In 1933 Dickinson returned to England (UNA, XXXI (7), 1.7.1933, p201). In 1939, she was in London and ‘happily busy’ (UNA, XXXVII (3), 1.3.1939, p81). She came back to Australia via the United States with Violet Harvey, with whom she had nursed in Salonika) in December 1939. This war veteran had experienced the ‘Phoney War’ in Britain and was full of ‘admiration for the calmness of the British people, particularly where evacuation of great cities was carried out so efficiently and quickly’ (UNA, XXXVIII (1), 1.1.1940, p10).

Dickinson was on a visit to Hobart, perhaps renewing old friendships, when she was taken ill and died on 4 May 1945.  She was buried there in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery, the same cemetery as her fellow St Peter’s parishioner, AANS member and mothercraft nurse Annie Purcell.

Ruby Droma Dickinson is commemorated at St Peter’s Church Eastern Hill, East Melbourne among parishioners who served in the Great War of 1914–1918.