Florence MacDowell in 1912 (from Private Records collection 2DRL/1138)

Florence MacDowell was born in the mid 1870s, the daughter of Swanston Hay MacDowell and Kathleen Champ. She trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria and the Queens Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. She opened her own hospital called ‘Windarra’ at Toorak in Victoria, but later moved abroad, living mostly in Italy. She was staying on the Island of Elba in Tuscany when war broke out in 1914.

She made her way to England where she joined the British Red Cross. She worked as a Sister in their hospital at Vranatzka Banya in Serbia. In late 1915 and early 1916 the Serbian forces were overrun and retreated to Albania and Montenegro. Sister MacDowell evacuated from Serbia and eventually made her way back to England.

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