With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron* for posting a portrait of Nurse Dorothy Hewins in WW1 on her Facebook Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas
Nurse Hewins by Helen Margaret McKenzie
Dorothy Hewins was born on 24th Febuary 1894 in Oxford, UK, where her Father, William Albert Samuel Hewins was a Professor of Economics. Her Mother was Margaret Hewins, nee Slater. Dorothy and Nancy had a brother – Maurice Gravenor Hewins - who was born in Chelsea, London, UK in 1897. Margaret Nancy Hewins was born on 14th February 1902 in Putney, London, UK in 1902.
Maurice served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Middlesex Regiment T.F. Res., attached to the Colonial Office.
During the First World War, Dorothy volunteered to work at the Surgical Requisites Association (SRA)** in Mulberry Walk, Chelsea. In this role she trained and eventually became a fulltime member of the first ever team to develop and apply plaster casts to the injured.
Dorothy struggled with ill health for most of her life and died in 1949.
Nancy studied at Oxford Unversity and became a theatre director and actress. In 1927 Nancy created a women’s theatre troupe called Osiris, which toured the country for some four decades. Nancy died in 1978.
Sources: Initial Source: Debbie Cameron’s Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699/
Additional Sources: Find my Past, FreBMD, Wikipedia and
https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/stories/womens-history-month-the-hewins-sisters
http://www.bathwarhospital.org/articles/surgical-requisites-association/
“Gloucestershire Echo”, 19 March 1940
NOTE
**The Surgical Requisites Association was an offshoot of Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild, who undertook to supply surgical dressings. Two women, Anne Acheson and Elinor Halle, who were both sculptors, devised a way of making splints out of papier mache that were both lighter and cheaper than those made of traditional materials. Old sugar bags were found to be the best material, and these were collected from grocers and members of the public with the help of boy scouts. The Bath branch of the association, believed to be one of only 6 outside London, was established in January 1918, and formally opened later that year by HRH Princess Beatrice accompanied by Lady Crutchley, the head of the first depot in Mulberry Walk, London.
Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild
In 1885 Princess Mary Adelaide of Teck (mother of the future Queen Mary) had became patron of The London Guild, beginning an unbroken line of Royal patronage. In 1897 her daughter, the Duchess of York (the future Queen Mary) became the patron, having helped her mother with the charity since childhood.
The Guild was established in 1882 when the matron of an orphanage in Dorset asked Lady Wolverton for 24 pairs of knitted socks and 12 jerseys for the children in her care. She started a small Guild amongst her friends to provide not less than 2 garments for each child at the orphanage and to supply clothing for other charitable institutions. The Guild grew quickly and by 1894 The London Needlework Guild (as it was then known) was making and distributing over 52,000 garments a year.
On becoming Queen Consort in 1910, Queen Mary renamed the charity Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild and in 1914 established St James’s Palace as the headquarters.
(The portrait of Nurse Hewins was painted by Scottish artist and etcher Helen Margaret MacKENZIE (1881-1966) who was born in Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland - the daughter of an architect. She studied at the Royal College of Art with Gerald Moira, gaining her diploma in 1906.)
*https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699/
