Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class: Sister Dorothy Jane Louisa Newton, Australian Army Nursing Service

Place Europe: Western Front
Accession Number REL48340.001
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Award
Physical description Enamel, Silver
Maker Garrard & Co Ltd
Place made United Kingdom: England, Greater London, London
Date made c 1917
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Description

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class. Unnamed as issued. In original presentation case.

History / Summary

Born in Victoria in 1887, Dorothy Jane Louisa Newton was a talented musician who was accepted as a student at the Melbourne Conservatorium. Family circumstances meant that she was unable to complete her studies and she trained instead as a nurse, as did her younger sister, Eileen.

On 3 April 1915 she enlisted as a staff nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service. Ten days later she sailed aboard HMAT A55 Kyarra for service with 1 Australian General Hospital in Egypt, where she nursed casualties from the Gallipoli campaign. In April 1916 she moved with her hospital to Rouen, France, near the Western Front. A year later Newton was promoted to sister. She then nursed in a series of casualty clearing stations, close to the front line: Numbers 29, 32 and 46 (British) Casualty Clearing Stations, and 3 Australian Casualty Clearing Station. For her outstanding work with these units in 1917 she was awarded the Associate (or 2nd Class) Royal Red Cross. Sister Newton continued working in casualty clearing stations in 1918, alternating with postings to 6 Stationary Hospital and 7th General Hospital. She moved to London at the end of the year and was posted to 2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Southall throughout December before returning to Australia aboard HMAT Aeneas, where she was placed in charge of the nursing staff. She was discharged from the army in April.

Newton’s sister, Eileen, also served with the Australian Army Nursing Service, in India. When Eileen returned to Melbourne she was posted to 11th Australian General Hospital at Caulfield from April 1919 to April 1920. During a visit to her there Dorothy met and fell in love with Warrant Officer Lewis Henry Ryall, who had been severely wounded at Villers Bretonneux (see REL51189.001). The couple married in 1921 and moved to Queensland for Lewis’s health. Their only child, William Henry 'Bill' was born in 1922. Lewis Ryall died in 1927 from complications relating to his war service, and Dorothy and her son returned to Melbourne where she took up a position as matron at Trinity College, Melbourne University. She died in 1942.