WILSON Matilda Rose

Wife of William Francis MOYLE.

Additional Information:

WILSON, MATILDA ROSE
Sister, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve.
b. Aberdeen, Scotland.
d. 15.05.1960 Nambour, Qld.

Sister Matilda Rose Wilson QAIMNSR, was the daughter of Alexander Wilson and Isabella Shepherd of Aberdeen, Scotland. She appears on the 1911 Census for England working as Matron, single aged 30 years, a missionary nurse from New Pilsley, Aberdeen.
She worked as a nursing sister during World War One, serving in France during the retreat from Mons. From there she served at Salonica in Greece then Lemnos Island, where she was in control of the hospital caring for soldiers who were wounded in Gallipoli. Miss Wilson was in Turkey nursing soldiers wounded in the Desert Campaign and on one occasion she managed to get through the lines to tend the wounded of a detachment of troops cut off in battle.
Matilda Rose Wilson was Mentioned in Despatches for her bravery in battle. She received the Florence Nightingale Medal – the highest award in the British Empire for nursing – and the Royal Red Cross Medal.
She arrived in Brisbane from Liverpool, England, on the Zealandic 17 May 1920 and married William Francis Moyle in Queensland, Australia, 20 May 1920.
Matilda Rose Wilson Moyle died in Nambour Hospital, 15 May 1960, still in mourning after losing her husband. The pall-bearers at her funeral were soldiers she had nursed at Lemnos Island during the war. She was buried with her husband Major William Francis Moyle in the Old Nambour Cemetery.

Source: National Archives of Australia; 1911 Census of England & Wales; Queensland Marriage and Death Records; Ancestry Australia website; Nambour Chronicle 27 May 1960 p.16.

From the Genealogy Sunshine Coast publication
“AND THEIR NAMES SHALL LIVE FOREVER…”
REMEMBERING MILITARY PERSONNEL IN THE OLD MAROOCHY SHIRE CEMETERIES – BOOK 2, THE SMALL CEMETERIES (DIDDILLIBAH, EUMUNDI, GHEERULLA, MAPLETON, OLD NAMBOUR, YANDINA)

Photo of Matilda Rose Wilson and her husband, Major Moyle. Photo courtesy of Nambour Museum.
All photos courtesy of Alex Taylor & Dotti Kemp.