Badges : Sister H M Loxton, 'Bluebirds', New South Wales Branch, Red Cross Society

Pair Red Cross Society 'Bluebird' nurse's oval-shaped blue, white and red enamel badge. The badge has 'AUSTRALIA , NEW SOUTH WALES' around the edge in gilt with the Geneva Cross on a white background in the centre.

Associated with the service of Hilda Mary Loxton. Loxton was born in Inverell, NSW in 1879 and trained as a civilian nurse at the Sydney Children's Hospital. In 1916 she was selected from a group of eighty applicants to be part of a twenty nurse unit sent directly to the Western Front to nurse in French military hospitals. The idea for this unit came from members of the New South Wales Branch of the Red Cross who had noted the shortage of nurses in the French hospitals during an earlier visit to the front.

The twenty nurses selected had mostly trained in Sydney hospitals with some having had experience in Military Hospitals and a few had already served overseas. A French teacher was enlisted to provide the nurses with an intense course in the language. Quickly named 'The Bluebirds' for their distinguishing blue uniform, the unit sailed for the Western Front aboard the hospital ship Kanowna on 4 July 1916.

On arrival in England the Bluebirds reported to the Anglo-French Red Cross at Knightsbridge where arrangements were made to send them, usually in pairs, to military hospitals in France.

Loxton was employed by Mrs Bordern Turner, a rich American woman, who had established a mobile hospital (Hospital Chirurgical Mobile No. 1) to operate behind the lines on the Western Front. Demountable huts which were able to be transported further behind the lines were used as wards for the patients.

This hospital was first situated at Beverau, twenty miles from Dunkirk. From March 1917 it was located in Belgium, initially at Oest Hoek then Rausbrugge. In May 1918 the hospital returned to France where it was located at Forges-les-Eaux.

Loxton spent the majority of her nursing service at Hospital Chirurgical Mobile No. 1 but from August 1917 she was transferred to the infectious diseases hospital near Montpellier for four months.

Originally volunteering for 12 months overseas service Loxton served until the end of the war, returning home to Australia aboard HMAT Zealandia on 26 November 1918. She was discharged in Sydney on 10 January 1919.