Staff Nurse Jessie McColl CAMERON

Jessie’s birth in 1886 to Robert and Margaret Cameron was registered at Inverell.  She trained at the Coast Hospital in Sydney and became a member of the Australian Trained Nurses Association. Prior to enlistment for overseas service in June 1916, Jessie worked for nine months at the AIF Liverpool Field Hospital.

 In September 1916 she sailed from Australia for Bombay, India, where she was assigned to the 450 bed ambulance ship Varela which sailed to and from Mesopotamia carrying wounded soldiers.

The following year Jessie was transferred to India for duty at Hislop War Hospital and then Colaba War Hospital in Bombay where the patients were mostly British. 

Jessie resigned from the nursing service to marry Englishman Dr George Frederick Hurst in India in 1919.  After the war the couple returned to England to live. Jessie, who had one son, died in England in 1975.