Winifred Mary Cramer (1877–1965)

Winifred Mary Cramer is commemorated on the Honour Board at St Peter’s Eastern Hill, East Melbourne, with other nurses from the parish who served in the Great War of 1914–18.

Winifred Cramer was not sent overseas with the Australian Army Nursing Service. Her service was ‘Home Service’, looking after troops in military camps before they embarked with the AIF and/or in military hospitals on their return where they were treated for wounds, illnesses and injuries sustained during the war. Her elder sister, Constance Cramer, did serve in the Australian Army Nursing Service in Egypt and France from 1915 to 1919.

There were several reasons why nurses who wanted to serve overseas could not. The numbers in the Australian Army Nursing Service were regulated, determined by the establishment (beds) in the Australian hospitals in England and France and British requests for assistance in their hospitals. Moreover, it became a requirement during the war that nurses going on overseas service had to have served a period of home service first, so the war may have ended before they had the opportunity. There  may also have been family reasons to keep her at home, such as family illness.

Unfortunately the records of the nurses on Home Service are virtually non-existent (Kirsty Harris 2012, 'Researching Australian World War I Nurses', Ancestor, Genealogical Society of Victoria, vol. 31, issue 1).  According to UNA, the journal of the Trained Nurses Association of Victoria, in mid 1916 she was nursing at the military hospital connected with the camp at Broadmeadows after previously working at the infectious diseases hospital at Glenroy (UNA XIV (6), 30.8.1916, p176).

The focus of the East Melbourne Historical Society’s WW1 project is those connected with East Melbourne who served overseas.

However, a brief account of Winifred Cramer’s life illustrates several aspects of the lives of some nurses during and after the war. She was one of seven daughters born to Irishman William George Cramer (1845–1917) and his wife Emily (nee Duncan). She was brought up in the Melbourne suburbs of Brighton and South Yarra, her father an insurance broker.

An article in the Melbourne Argus (Argus, 31.3.1949, p8) reported her farewell by the Richmond Council Baby Health Centre after 28 years service in Richmond and South Burnley. She was one of a number of army nurses who moved into the burgeoning field of infant health after the war. She was 72 when she retired.

The most detailed information about Winifred comes from an application she made in 1956 to the Edith Cavell Trust Fund for sick and needy army nurses (Winifred Cramer, Application, Edith Cavell Trust Fund, M290 [NAA]). In it she stated she trained as a nurse at the Children’s Hospital (1913) and began army nursing in 1916. She sought to enlist in 1916, and was allocated to Home Service.

Winifred Cramer sought the trustees’ help on a number of occasions. Some applications were made on behalf of her sister, Constance Cramer, in 1920 and the 1950s and 1960s. She herself sought funds in 1919, when she was ill and required rest and again in 1920 while she had no employment. She received £10 on each occasion.

She wrote seeking assistance from the Fund in 1956, by then in her late 70s. She had not worked for seven years, and drew a repatriation pension. She and her sisters managed; one contributed to the rent, another Winifred paid a small amount to keep house for her. She had some dividends from shares. She assured the Fund she could ‘manage nicely except for extras’, but sought a ‘little help’ for warm clothing. The Fund sent her £25. It was her last application although she lived for another decade.

Winifred Cramer died in Elsternwick, Melbourne in 1965.

She is commemorated among the parishioners of St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, East Melbourne who served in the Great War on honour boards in the church precinct.