Ethel Watkins Taylor

I whānau mai i te 17 Mar 1880 - I mate atu i te 19 Jul 1964

Nama Hōia: WWI 22/47 AWMM
Ingoa kārangaranga: Ethel Watkins-Taylor AWMM
Pritchard AWMM
Watkins AWMM
Te Ope o Tū / te peka: Army AWMM
Te tūnga whakamutunga: WW1 Sister AWMM New Zealand Army Nursing Service AWMM
Pakanga: World War I, 1914-1918 AWMM

Mātātuhi

Lay a poppy

Portrait of Ethel Watkins Taylor. Image sourced from Sherayl McNabb's 100 Years of New Zealand Military Nursing (February 2026). No Known Copyright Restrictions

Whakaatu mai ngā āpure e wātea ana Hunaia ngā mātāwai kōrero

Kōrero taurongo

Daughter of Madgeline Ratahi Cochrane Watkins Taylor (1860-1933) and Bazett (Barrett) Watkins. Great grandaughter of Judge Frederick Edward Maning. Wife of Albert Pritchard, married 5 July 1921. Taylor was the great granddaughter of Moengaroa of Te Hikutu, a hapu of Nga Puhi. Siblings - Sarah (b. 1881), William (b. 1883), Madeline (b. 1887). Children – Albert Manning (1924-1924).

Served 4 years 78 days in WW1.

Joined Legion of Frontiersmen around 1916 and was awarded long-service medal in 1949

Awarded the MBE in 1949

Name changed from Ethel Watkins to Ethel Watkins Taylor after 1902. Portrait in DNZB. Listed by Kai Tiaki as Ethel Watkins-Taylor.

One of the few Nurses of Māori descent serving in WWI.

Ethel Watkins Taylor (later Pritchard) (WWI service no. 22/47) was born in Onehunga on 17 March 1880, the daughter of Madeline (Magdaline) Rātahi Cochrane and her husband, Bazett (Barrett) Watkins, and was of Ngāpuhi descent. Following her mother’s remarriage to Colin McKenzie Taylor in 1902, she used the surname Watkins Taylor.

She trained in midwifery in Wellington in 1906, began hospital nursing at Hāwera, and completed her nursing training at Christchurch Hospital, qualifying with honours in 1910. After working as a sister at Cook Hospital, Gisborne, she volunteered for the New Zealand Army Nursing Service.

Selected among the first 50 nurses to serve overseas, she embarked on 8 April 1915 and was posted to No. 15 New Zealand General Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. There she supervised orderlies and cared for large convoys of wounded from Gallipoli. By February 1916 she had personally tended more than 3,500 patients. In total, she served 4 years and 78 days overseas, nursing in Egypt, on hospital ships, and in army hospitals in England, before returning to New Zealand in 1919.

After the war she served as native health nurse at Te Karaka. Following her marriage to Albert Pritchard in Napier in 1921, she undertook district nursing across the Matawai–Mōtū district for many years. In 1949 she was appointed MBE and received a long-service medal from the Legion of Frontiersmen. She died in Gisborne on 19 July 1964 and is buried at Taruheru Cemetery (Profile written for “A Flight to Remember”, an Anzac Day 2026 initiative by Online Cenotaph and Air New Zealand). AWMM
1919 - Among those who arrived on the Ripple yesterday morning was Sister Ethel Watkins Taylor, who left with the first drafts of 50 nurses from New Zealand in 1915. She has returned after four years service, and was awarded the 1915 decoration. She is the guest of Mr and Mrs Hewitt, Fox street. Sister Watkins Taylor's first appointment was to the 15th General Hospital, Alexandria, and in the course of her experiences she was for a time engaged on hospital ships, and on one occasion witnessed a fight between a submarine and a transport.
Public - Lorraine M - Researcher - 11 November 2015 - Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14925, 31 May 1919, Page 2
1921 - Sister Ethel Watkins Taylor is resigning her position as Native Health Nurse at Te Karaka, on account of her approaching marriage -
Public - Lorraine M - Researcher - 11 November 2015 - Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XIV, Issue 2, April 1921, Page 101

Ngā mātāwai

Hononga ki waho: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5p38/pritchard-ethel
Sources Used
Military personnel file
https://collections.archives.govt.nz/web/arena/search/#/entity/aims-archive/R7824200
Further Reference
Other military personnel file
https://collections.archives.govt.nz/web/arena/search/#/entity/aims-archive/R7880982
Further Reference
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Published on Te Ara, The Encyclopedia of New Zealand online.
http://dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=5P38
Further Reference
Marriages and Engagements. Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XIV, Issue 4, October 1921, Page 213
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=KT19211001.2.54&srpos
Further Reference
New Zealand Military Nursing: New Zealand Army Nursing Service - Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps.
http://web.archive.org/web/20220126041404/https://www.nzans.org/index.htm
Further Reference
Letters from Our Nurses Abroad, Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume IX, Issue 3, 1 July 1916, Page 139
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/KT19160701.2.26
Further Reference
An Overview of Māori Military Service for the Crown, 1899 – 1945 (Wai 2500, #A247)
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_137303813/Wai%202500%2C%20A247.pdf
Further Reference
Cowan, J. (1926). The Maoris in the Great War. Auckland, N.Z.: Maori Regimental Committee by Whitcombe & Tombs.
https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/webarchive/20201108000000/https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-CowMaor.html
Further Reference
Nelson Museum Profile
https://web.archive.org/web/20210207152822/http://ww100.nelsonmuseum.co.nz/character?profileId=79
Further Reference
The Last Train, Gisborne Photo News, Issue 57, 2 April 1959.
https://photonews.org.nz/gisborne/issue/GPN57_19590402/t1-body-d3.html
Further Reference
New Zealand nurses for the Front: the party which left Wellington for London on the SS Rotorua last Thursday under arrangement with the imperial authorities. Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 15 April 1915, p.38. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19150415-38-01
https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/photos/id/214958/rec/165
Further Reference
Ngā tuhinga: McDonald, W. (2013). Honours and Awards to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Great War, 1914-1918. (3rd ed.). Hamilton, N.Z.: Richard Stowers.
Burling, G.B. (2009). Legion of Frontiersmen New Zealand Command Inc : History 1904 - 2009. Waihi, N.Z.: Graham B. Burling.
New Zealand Army Expeditionary Force. (1914-1919). Nominal Rolls of New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Volume I. Wellington, N.Z.: Govt. Printer.
Vol1: 713
Gisborne Herald
Obitiuary: Gisborne Herald, 20 July 1968 p. 8
Service Women Project: Sponsorship to research this record was kindly provided by the Auckland Returned Services Association, Returned Servicewomen's Branch; Marjorie Traill, Dorothy Grant, Daphne Shaw and Margaret Woollett.
McNabb, S. (2015). 100 years New Zealand military nursing : New Zealand Army nursing service : Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps, 1915-2015. Hawke's Bay, N.Z.: Sherayl McNabb.
Cowan, J. (1926). The Maoris in the Great War. Auckland, N.Z.: Maori Regimental Committee by Whitcombe & Tombs.
Soutar, M. (2019). Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E!: Maori In the First World War. New Zealand: David Bateman Ltd.
This record was part of “A Flight to Remember”, an Anzac Day 2026 commemorative partnership between Online Cenotaph and Air New Zealand, where service stories were shared onboard a dawn flight from Auckland to Sydney.
Tolerton, J. (2017). Make her praises heard afar : New Zealand women overseas in World War One. Wellington, New Zealand : Booklovers Books.
Rogers, A. (2003). While You're Away: New Zealand Nurses at War 1899-1948. Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press.

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Ethel Watkins Taylor

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