Abstract:

In the years just before and during the First World War, tens of thousands of British women joined an organization called the Voluntary Aid Detachments, or VADs, to provide first aid and other supplementary services to the British military. This study of the Voluntary Aid Detachments in the decade from 1910-1920 draws primarily on unpublished diaries, letters, and memoirs of women members, who became known as VADs. Moving from the prewar years, through the First World War and its aftermath, this work examines motives for joining the Voluntary Aid Detachments, British culture's view of nursing, the work performed by VAD members both in Britain and abroad as well as the lives of individual VADs after the war.

A study of the pre-war political climate reveals that the preparedness campaign spawned many types of paramilitary organizations, including the VADs who were originally part of the Territorial Army. British culture's images of nurses are analyzed, particularly the influence of Florence Nightingale and her emphasis on nursing as service. Although the VADs were mostly untested before the war, they soon became an integral part of British military medicine, extending their scope beyond small auxiliary hospitals into a diverse range of nursing, ambulance driving, cooking, clerical and pharmacy work. More than just a study of the lives of individual VADs, this dissertation looks both at the integration of women into military service, and attempts to explain how the war affected women's roles in British culture.