Author Topic: Isobella Warren Gordon  (Read 10118 times)

Offline loobylooayr

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 3,322
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #27 on: Sunday 26 October 14 19:03 GMT (UK) »
Well done Dod and conner395 for bringing Margaret into the story and enabling SWH1 to " join the dots" and connect Isabella with Grange Loan.
Looby :)

Offline SWH1

  • RootsChat Senior
  • ****
  • Posts: 353
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #28 on: Sunday 26 October 14 19:35 GMT (UK) »
Indeed, a big thank you to everyone. I can get started on putting her story together.

Offline conner395

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 125
  • Northern Police Pipe Band www.norconpipeband.co.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #29 on: Sunday 26 October 14 21:55 GMT (UK) »
I for one would be fascinated to hear more.


Indeed, a big thank you to everyone. I can get started on putting her story together.
Dave Conner
retired police officer / force historian (volunteer)
(Northern Constabulary)
Inverness, Scotland

Researching Police History of the Scottish Highlands and Islands
(Northern Constabulary area)

Offline SWH1

  • RootsChat Senior
  • ****
  • Posts: 353
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #30 on: Monday 27 October 14 15:17 GMT (UK) »
Ok, i will let you know when the details are on the web site, least i can do. Thank you. I am also in Tain tomorrow night doing a talk/presentation  on the SWH, please come along if you are free.


Offline FosseWay

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 211
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #31 on: Saturday 01 November 14 10:32 GMT (UK) »
Thanks to conner395 for drawing my attention to this thread...

Someone a few posts up mentioned the war grave of J.A.G. Cameron, along with his parents Margaret and Alexander. M & A are my great-grandparents and I can confirm that Isabella and Margaret are sisters.

I don't have any definitive evidence for Isabella's whereabouts in the UK after the 1911 census, but Margaret lived at 78 Grange Loan, Edinburgh for a long time. Alexander died there in 1920 in his 50s and as far as I know they were there from their return from their last international posting. This may have been in 1916; I have Alexander's passport from that year showing his progress from Cape Town, zigzagging up the Atlantic to avoid the U boats. In any case, both Alexander and Margaret died at 78 GL, she in 1954.

This is speculation, but it could be that they rented the property from Isabella, who had no immediate use for it while in Italy.

As to Isabella, the information I have on her after 1911 comes from my dad's cousin, another grandchild of Alexander and Margaret. After serving as a nurse in WW1 she ran a pensione in Genoa until being interned as an enemy alien in 1940. After WW2 she again ran, or at least lived in, a pensione, but I'm not sure where. The place name my dad's cousin gave is Rapella, but I can't find anywhere convincing with this name. It may have been the name of the pensione itself, long since disappeared.

I don't have any record of her death and presume she died in Italy.

Offline ecksdochter

  • RootsChat Veteran
  • *****
  • Posts: 537
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #32 on: Saturday 01 November 14 17:48 GMT (UK) »
Hello SWH1 etc,
     Doesn't help you with Isobella but I found this on An***try & thought I'd pass it on.
          UK Soldiers Died in The Great War 1914-1919.
     Name:  James Alstair Gordon Cameron. (Alastair has been miss-spelt)
     Death Date:  18 Nov. 1916.
     Rank:  2 Lieutenant.
     Regiment:  Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.
     Battalion:  3rd Battalion.
     Type of Casualty:  Killed in Action.
                         &
          England & Wales. National Probate Calendar.
          Index of Wills & Administration. 1917. Page 438.
     CAMERON. James Alastair Gordon of 78 Grange-loan, Edinburgh. Second-Lieutenant 3rd Battalion Cameron Highlanders. Died 18 November 1916 in France on Active Service. Confirmation of Alexander Cameron. Sealed London 26 January. (1917)
               
               Regards,     Dod.
"Scotsman! I am not a Scotsman -- I am a Fifer."

Offline SWH1

  • RootsChat Senior
  • ****
  • Posts: 353
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #33 on: Sunday 02 November 14 14:40 GMT (UK) »
Here's what ive got folks.

sobella's father was James Gordon a Police Inspector at Dingwall. James would later become Supt in charge of Isle of Lewis before being appointed Chief Constable of Ross & Cromarty in 1888. Prior to joining the Scottish Women's Hospitals in October 1915, Isobella had been working at Street Lane, Leeds, a center for the East Leeds War Hospital. She joined the Girton and Newnham unit and sailed to Salonika where she joined Dr Anne McIlroy, the CMO. Deployed to Gevgelija, a frontier town just across the border in Serbia and established a hospital there in a disused factory. In December 1915 the hospital was abandoned and evacuated to Salonica as the allies retreated in the face of the advancing Bulgarian and German armies. The hospital was re-established in Salonica and treated both French and Serbian casualties. In the autumn of 1916 the “American Unit’ of the SWH joined the Girton and Newnham Unit in Macedonia and in the summer of 1918 Isabel Emslie became its CMO. Isobella would spend many years teaming up with Emslie, a friendship and great working relationship. Isobella like many of the women during what time off they had loved to perform plays and entertain each other and the troops. A some point Isobella returned home and stayed with her sister Margaret in Grange Loan, Edinburgh. The summer in Macedonia in 1916 was very hot and brought with it the attendant problems of dysentery, flies and, worse of all, malaria. The nursing duties would have been very heavy indeed. In 1917 Isobella would have witnessed and helped nurse those effected by the great fire of Thessaloniki. The hospital tents themselves were close to burning down. The unit took part in the rapid French and Serbian advance that broke the back of the Bulgarian army and followed them providing assistance to both casualties and civilians as they pursued the retreating Germans and Bulgarians to Skopje, Nish and eventually Belgrade. The hospital at Belgrade was established, equipped and functioning by January 1919, a remarkable achievement. Against the advice of Isabel Emslie, who strongly believed that the SWH had a key role to play in post-war Serbia, in the autumn of 1919 and in accordance with the wishes of the SWH Committee, the hospital was handed over to the Serbian government. Isobella left the SWH in May 1919. Isobella seemed to have made her own way after that and in the early 1920;s was running the British Women's Club in Constantinople. Later she ran a Boarding House in Genoa until being interned as an enemy alien in 1940. After WW2 she lived at Via Ponte, Annibale,Rotondo, Rapella, Isobella died in October 1959.

In 1917 Isobella was awarded the Médaille des Epidémies.

Offline FosseWay

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 211
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #34 on: Sunday 02 November 14 15:41 GMT (UK) »
As I mentioned before, I couldn't find anywhere called Rapella. I had wondered whether this was a mishearing or misremembering on the part of my dad's cousin (who as far as I know doesn't speak Italian) for Rapallo, which definitely exists, a few tens of km to the east of Genoa.

SWH1's precise address clinches it: There is a Via Ponte Anibale in Rapallo - see here on Google Maps.

Offline Fushia

  • RootsChat Extra
  • **
  • Posts: 13
    • View Profile
Re: Isobella Warren Gordon
« Reply #35 on: Wednesday 30 June 21 04:22 BST (UK) »
Let me know if more information is needed.  I have a collection of postcards sent to/from Isabella.