Page 108 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

A QUIET WOMAN?

In late October 1914 the first convoy of 726 wounded soldiers
arrived in Cobh and two special ambulance trains carried 296 to
Kingsbridge Railway Station, Dublin. A further 650 arrived the
following week. Despite some pre-war readiness, the pressure
9
forced the creation of voluntary hospitals funded by public
subscription and endowment. Several St John Ambulance
Divisions were already in place and many more created. Averil’s
mother, a busy first aid volunteer, set up and managed the
Greystones War Supply Depot from 1916, where Averil put in a
total of 338½ hours. The VAD nursing corps also benefited from
the Morphy sisters, the twins’ longstanding friend and fellow law
graduate, Kathleen Burgess, and other friends.

Studying for a law degree did not prevent Averil playing her
part in the war effort. She was a VAD Nursing Sister at the Trinity
D.U.V.A.D Hospital from March 1915 to February 1917 and
again from June 1917 to June 1918. Like many others, she also
appeared in various charity events in aid of causes such as the
Belgian soldiers. But she wanted to do more, so, having
graduated in 1915, she pushed to get into the frontline as an
ambulance driver: her father, one of the first men to own a car in
Greystones, had already taught her to drive.

She applied to the Queen Alexandra Yeomanry, travelling to
London for the requisite test. Initially rejected on the grounds that
she could not reassemble a dismantled engine, a subsequent
rule change eventually enabled her to serve from July to
December 1918 in France and Flanders. She was based at the
Hopital de La Mothe, Villeneuve-sur-Lot, France, with the French
Red Cross. Her brother William, commissioned in August 1914,
was already away serving with the Royal Army Supply Corps and

9 War Record St John Ambulance Brigade & British Red Cross Society in
Leinster, Munster and Connaught 1914-1918 (Dublin, c.1919).
104