Staff Nurse Ethel Mary Strachan, QAIMNS (1884-1972) migrated to New Zealand with a friend, Sybil Kelly, in 1910. When war broke out the pair were not immediately accepted for the NZ Army Nursing Service, which gave precedence to New Zealand trained nurses, so paid their own passage to England to nurse with other New Zealanders at the Walton-on-Thames Hospital. In March 1916 Miss Strachan and Miss Kelly were selected to join the staff of the Anglo-Russian Hospital at Petrograd, housed in the palace of Prince Dimitri, and also served close to the frontline of battle. She was in Petrograd at the commencement of the revolution and later noted that “I became well mixed up in the intrigue when Prince Dimitri plotted the murder of Rasputin from his flat on top of the palace. I even nursed the murderer when he got a fishbone stuck in his throat.”

Ethel and Sybil left Russia in April 1917 shortly after the March revolution and the abdication of Tzar Nicholas II. After the war the pair opened a private hospital in Wanganui.

The photographs show the Russian Anglo Hospital together with photos taken in the field and include a photograph with the Czarina and her five daughters. Ethel is standing near the centre of the 5th row from the front wearing her NZ Registered Nursing badge.

Auckland War Memorial Museum, Brent Mackrell collection, acc. 2001.25.953-961

“The Russian wounded were transported in open carriages across Russia. The use of plaster of paris was new, and the Russians used it to seal wounded limbs. Result – the wounds were crawling with maggots at the end of the journey, requiring amputation often leading to death.” Sister EM Strachan