Florence Elizabeth (James-Wallace) Mellsop (1886 - 1970)

Born 1886 in Saint Lawrence, Queensland (Australia)

Ancestors

Wife of Harry Oswald Mellsop — married 1927 in New Zealand

Died 1970 at about age 84 in Auckland, New Zealand

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Biography

Florence (James-Wallace) Mellsop is an Anzac who served in World War One.

Sister Florence Elizabeth James-Wallace was born in 1886 in Killarney, Saint Lawrence (near Mackay), Queensland (Australia). She was the daughter of Anglo-Irish emigrants, John James-Wallace and Amalie Bernard.^[1] After her father died in 1901, her mother sold the property and moved the family to South Brisbane, where she established a boarding-house that she named Ellerslie. Florence soon commenced nursing training at Brisbane General Hospital, gaining her nursing certificate in 1910.

On 26th April 1915, just a day after the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli in the First World War, Florence enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service. She was posted to the 3rd Australian General Hospital (3rd AGH), under Matron Grace Wilson.^[2][3] Travelling by three trains to Melbourne (the States each had different rail widths and passengers had to change trains at the State borders), Florence and the other nursing staff of 3rd AGH boarded the Mooltan for Great Britain.

In August they were despatched to Mudros Harbour on Lemnos Island, just hours from Gallipoli, to establish a third tented hospital, such was the wounded rate. Whilst on Lemnos, Florence bought 166 photgraphs from soldier-photographer James Savage, a treasured collection depicting life in the First World War. After five months on Lemnos treating the horrific wounds suffered by the young soldiers at Gallipoli, she was transferred to Alexandria, Egypt (where the hospital was established in a former harem), thence to the Kitchener Indian Army Hospital at Brighton, England in October 1916, and then to France, to Abbeville at the mouth of the Somme River in April 1917. Amongst the patients there were those affected with blistered throats and lungs damaged by mustard or phosgene gas. Here, they were also often bombed.

If she was going to be in the 'thick of things', Florence decided she may as well volunteer to serve in the Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS); tents, barns and bombed-out farmhouses close to railheads. Not places for the squeamish, CCS tended to be bombed nightly and resemble butchers shops with the number of amputations performed. Here too, most of Florence's war diary was destroyed and lost.

She returned to Australia 23rd January 1919 and was demobilsed from the Australian Imperial Force. For her war service she was awarded the 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. Unable to immediately return to work, Florence took time to recover from her ordeals, although the pain of rheumatisma and arthritis stayed with her for the remainder of her life. Initally living with her moter and sister at Wynnum, by Moreton Bay in Brisbane's south east, in September 1919 Florence was allotted Portion 97 of the Waterworks Road Soldier Settlement in the Parish of Enoggera: 42 blocks were made available 'for settlement by soldiers and one nursing sister'. She supported herself by taking some private nursing jobs. Her mother passed away in 1920.

Having regained sufficient strength in 1923, Florence took a position as matron of an Auckland, New Zealand hospital where, in 1927, she met and married ANZAC Colonel and widower, Harry Oswald 'Ossie' Mellsop, nine years her elder.^[4] Florence became step-mother to four children, aged 22 years to 15 years. Florence and Ossie made several trips to Brisbane to visit her siblings. On one of these visits she left her photgraph collection and war diary remnants with her family; who subsequently donated them to the Fryer Library, Queensland.

Having been widowed for seven years, Florence passed away, aged 83 years, in 1970 at Auckland.^[5] She was survived by her brother, John, and younger sister, Kathleen; both still living in Brisbane.

Sources

1. ↑ Queensland Birth Index #C9132/1886
2. ↑ Australian Imperial Force attestation paper: Florence James-Wallace; accessed 11 Jul 2019
3. ↑ Australian War Memorial nominal roll: Staff Nurse Florence Elizabeth Wallace; accessed 11 Jul 2019
4. ↑ New Zealand Marriage Index #1927/6239
5. ↑ New Zealand Death Index #1970/39525

See also

• De Vries, Susanna. Australian Heroines of World War One. Pergos Press, Chapel Hill, Queensland, 2013.