Canadian Personallities
Nursing Sister Georgina Fane Pope (1862-1938)
Georgina Fane Pope, Canadian nursing sister in South Africa, November
1899 - December 1900; January - June 1902.
Born in Charlottetown, Georgina Pope was the daughter of William
Pope, a "Father of Confederation." A product of P.E.I. gentility,
Georgina doubtless could have had a comfortable marriage and become an
Island socialite. Instead, she attended the leading American school of
nursing at Bellevue in New York. She remained in New York until October
1899, when she returned to Canada to seek a position as a nurse with
the troops departing for South Africa.
Four nurses accompanied Canada's first contingent to South Africa
and four more joined the second, all with the honorary rank of
lieutenant. For five months after their arrival, the first group, with
Georgina Pope as senior sister, served at British hospitals just north
of Cape Town. Then, Nurse Pope and another sister proceeded north to
Kroonstadt where, despite shortages in food and medical supplies, they
took charge of the military hospital, successfully caring for 230
sufferers of enteric fever. In January 1902, Pope returned to South
Africa a second time as senior sister in charge of a second group of
eight Canadian nurses. Three other nurses among them were also
returning for a second tour of duty. They served at a hospital in Natal
until the end of the war in May.
In 1906, Nurse Pope began work as a member of the permanent Canadian
Army Medical Corps at the Garrison Hospital in Halifax. Two years later,
she attained the position of matron, the first in the history of the
Canadian Army Medical Corps. Nurse Pope went overseas in 1917, but was
invalided back to Canada at the end of 1918.