The Norman Gooding Collection

Six: Major Mary C. Bell, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, late Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Malaya, E.II.R. (Major M. C. Bell. Q.A.R.A.N.C.) very fine (6) £140-£180

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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Mary Clara Bell (née Barnes) was born in Lewisham on 4 April 1911 and trained as a nurse at the Miller General Hospital, Greenwich, from 1930 to 1933. She registered as SRN No. 68484 on 23 June 1933 and was provisionally appointed Staff Nurse in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service on 30 October 1937. Initially sent to Netley, she was promoted Sister on 30 October 1938 and transferred to Bovingdon Camp in February 1939. It was here that she was selected for an overseas tour to India, being posted to Cawnpore in the summer of 1939.

Appointed to a commission in the Q.A.I.M.N.S. on 30 May 1941, she married Captain Arthur Duncan Bell of the Royal Engineers at Quetta and adopted her married name. Promoted Senior Commander in 1949, she gained her Health Visitor’s Certificate of the Royal Sanitary Institute in 1951 and was subsequently posted on a tour of the Middle East. Transferred to the Far East, she served during the Malayan Emergency with Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and was likely heavily involved in treating British colonial police and military personnel; transformed into a campaign of guerilla warfare, British casualties exceeded 1400 troops, with thousands of civilians further affected by the use of herbicides and defoliants as a military weapon.

Returned home to England in 1960, Bell was retired to pension on 31 October 1962 and removed from the Reserve of Officers upon attaining the age limit on 4 April 1966.

Sold with copied research.