BENTLEY, Sister May Lawrence

Sister May Lawrence Bentley

Australian Army Nursing Service

by Robert Simpson

May was born in Hotham, Melbourne, Victoria on 14^th September 1881; a daughter to William Rae Buchanan Bentley and Angelina Lawrence. She was the 10^th born of 14 children to them. They moved to Ballarat at some time.

She trained for nursing at the Ballarat District Hospital from 1902 to 1905 and was then a trainee at the Women’s Hospital Carlton, Melbourne. After that she went into private nursing in Melbourne. The 1909 Electoral roll shows her in East Melbourne as a nurse. She lived there until 1911 when she moved to Perth and continued her private nursing there (private nursing is where a nurse is employed by a family to care for them at home). May was a member of the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses’ Association and the Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association.

She joined the Australian Army Nursing Service on 21^st November 1914. On her enrolment form she listed references from Robert Scott, Surgeon and Mrs. F Eagleton, Matron at the Ballarat Hospital. She also had a reference from a Perth doctor, Dr. Gertrude Meade. She embarked from Western Australia on 14^th December 1914 as a Staff Nurse with the 1^st Australian General Hospital on the Hospital Ship Kyarra. Her Attestation Form say she joined on 21^st Nov 1914, but the Australian Army Nursing Service, Questions to be answered by Candidates prior to Enrolment form has her signing the form on 19^th January 1915, on arrival in Egypt. She was issued pay-book 99326 and her terms of service were for the duration of the war and 4 months.

Her record reads as: –

19.1.15 at 1 AGH, Egypt

9. 6. 15. Detailed for duty returning to Australia by the Kyarra as Staff Nurse.

10. 6. 15. Embarked Suez Kyarra

17.7.15 Disembarked Melbourne

23.7.15 Embarked from Australia

4.8.15 Embarked on Orontes from Australia

4.9.15 Reported for duty to 3^rd Australian General Hospital on Lemnos

16.11.15 admitted to 3^rd Australian General Hospital at Lemnos with Catarrhal Jaundice (Hepatitis A)

1.12.15 Promoted to Sister at No. 1 Australian General Hospital

29.12.15 Discharged to duty from Hospital Lemnos

27.1.16 Disembarked Oxfordshire from Mudros

8.2.16 Returned to Australia from 3^rd Australian General Hospital Abbassia

9.2.16 embarked Suez Nursing duties to Australia per Nestor

28.2.16 Transport to Australia Nestor from Egypt

13.3.16 Arrived Melbourne Duty

4.4.16 Returned for duty 3 M.D.

7.7.16 Embarked for England on Galeka from Cairo and arrived on the 19th

20.7.16 Taken on strength 1^st Australian Auxiliary Hospital

22.7.16 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital Harefield

29.7.16 left England

31.7.16 Reported for duty at No. 1 Australian General Hospital Rouen France

1.2.17 Proceeded on Leave

16.3.17 Rejoined from Leave

17.9.17 Posted for duty to No. 47 Casualty Clearing Station

20.9.17 Reported for Duty

5.11.17 Returned to 1^st Australian General Hospital

16.2.18 Proceeded to Nurses Home Abbeville

8.3.18 Posted to 1^st Australian General Hospital ex 47^th C.C.S.

3.9.18 From Rouen to UK on leave – found medically unfit to return to France until 22.10.18 (not uncommon for nurses working in C.C.S’s)

24.10.18 Rejoined unit from leave

21.12.18 from 1^st A.G.H. France to Sutton Veny England for duty

23.12.18 Disembarked at Southampton

10.1.19 Attached to 2^nd Australian Auxiliary Hospital for duty ex No. 1 Australian Hospital Sutton Veny.

15.1.19 Detached from attached duty with 2^nd AAH and marched out for return to Australia.

20.1.19 Returned to Australia per City of York. Disembarked 18.2.19

July 1919 Discharged in Melbourne

1^st Australian General Hospital.

Hospital grounds.

Her Returned Soldier’s Badge was number 112079.

She was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

Another of her sisters, Lena Lawrence, also joined the Australian Army Nursing Service on 28.8.17 and left Sydney in 1917 attached to No. 14 AGH as a Staff Nurse. In 1918, she was at Egyptian Government Hospital at Suez. This hospital was staffed by Australian nurses in 1917-18 to handle and sick soldiers from the Australian transport ships. Then she went to the 31^st British General Hospital at Port Said in August 1918. In 1919, she was with the 31^st General Hospital at Abbassia. She returned to Australia on the Dunluce Castle and disembarked on 30.8.19 and was awarded the British War and Victory medals. She later married a Mr. Goldberg. May mentions another two of her sisters in correspondence, her eldest sister, Mrs. Voila Stone of “Colinston”, Watson Ave, Rosepark, Adelaide (where her mother was living also) and Isabel Bentley.

After the war, she worked for the Department of Repatriation as an Investigator (Lady) as noted in a letter from her to 3^rd Military District. She was then residing with one of her sisters, who had been married, at “Englimere”, Shellcoate Ave, Neutral Bay, Sydney. She moved back to Melbourne and on 2 electoral rolls she is listed as a nurse. Between 1931 and 1936 she must have retired and is listed at a couple of different addresses in Melbourne, either by herself or with 1 or 2 of her sisters.

In 1946, she applied for a grant of Letters of Administration for the estate of one of her brothers, Ernest Lawrence Bentley, who was an Accountant and had died intestate. His address was given as 26 Hawthorne Grove, Melbourne.

She did not marry. She died on 6^th May 1956 in Hawthorn, Melbourne.

ANZAC Biographies

On our website you will find the biographical details of ANZAC (as well as British) servicemen & women

whose medals or other memorabilia form part of the collection belonging to the

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