Sister Janet - Nurse & Heroine of the Anglo Zulu War of 1879
Brian Best & Katie Stossel, edited by Adrian Greaves

£17.99 from www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Her place in History.
The ‘Maintenance of Morale’ is one of the Principles of War taught to all young officer cadets passing through the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The principles are not new to the profession of arms, indeed they were reflected in the writings of that ‘mysterious Chinese warrior-philosopher’ Sun Tzu, well over two thousand years ago. They were later extolled in the Military Maxims of Napoleon.

In my experience, as a recent soldier, a significant factor that affects the morale of young men, going into battle, is that medical orderlies and nursing care will be available if they are wounded. They fear death but they fear the agony of wounding even more. They want reassurance that stretcher bearers will be there to recover them from the battlefield. They then like to know that nursing care, with all that now means, will be close at hand, someone like Sister Janet Wells for example, to administer ‘Tender Loving Care’.

Such expectancy is comparatively recent. Before the Crimean War, battlefield nursing care was non existent. It was only in the late 1800s that the Red Cross and Florence Nightingale, in particular, introduced the disciplines of nursing care to the modern battlefield. The strict training of ‘dedicated, unattached women’ as nurses in hospitals, close behind the ‘front line’, gradually became commonplace and was well accepted by 1914 when the First World War started.

There can be little doubt that one of the ‘key players’ in influencing, by example, this battlefield medical revolution, was Sister Janet. Everyone knows about the important exploits of Florence Nightingale but I suspect few know the name of Janet Wells. Clearly, these facts about her life have been crying out for an author, and now they have one.

Lieutenant General Sir Michael Grey KCB OBE DL
Late, Colonel Commandant The Parachute Regiment
January 2006.

From David Rattray
The Anglo Zulu War of 1879 caused many British soldiers and Zulu warriors terrible wounds, and disease was rife. Hospital care was in its infancy, especially in the British army, and so it is remarkable that in the midst of this terrible war a nineteen-year-old English nurse, Sister Janet Wells, was sent from London to take charge of the isolated and overcrowded British army hospital at Utrecht in South Africa. Already a decorated veteran of the 1878 Balkan War, she was highly experienced in treating war wounds. In her first two months at Utrecht she treated over 3,200 patients, both British soldiers and Zulus, many from the battles of Hlobane, Khambula and Ulundi.

She performed numerous operations, tended the sick and wounded, and brought an air of discipline, tempered by her charm and femininity, into a chaotic and desperate situation. Towards the end of the war she was sent to Rorke’s Drift where she administered to the remaining garrison. She walked the battlefields of Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana where she collected flowers for her scrapbooks – already containing many sketches and photographs, which survive to this day.

After the war she returned to her home and family in London, just in time for her twentieth birthday. Recognition by Queen Victoria followed, who decorated her with the Royal Red Cross, which was then the nursing equivalent of the Victoria Cross. The previous recipient was Florence Nightingale.

Hers is an astonishing story, of bravery and determination, which I commend to everyone who loves an adventure; it will especially fascinate students of the Anglo Zulu War – to whom this factual account will come, I am sure, as something of a surprise.

David Rattray
Zululand
South Africa
December 2005