Anstie Grange Red Cross Hospital was staffed by the Commandant, a matron and five trained nurses. Voluntary Aid Detachment volunteers assisted with nursing and ran the pantry and kitchens. Many local women offered their services, but they were not professional nurses, and many would never have worked before the war.
Dorothy Gore-Browne
The Commandant was Cuthbert Heath’s niece. She was born in Calcutta, India, were her father audited the East Indian Railway. She grew up in Guildford and Kensington. Before taking charge of Anstie, she ran the Hill Hospital in Farnham. She was tall, statuesque and beautiful, and wore a red uniform with a long white veil. Genesta Heath wrote that ‘everyone loved the Commandant… simply because they could not help it’.
Full biography of Dorothy Gore-Browne
Evelyn Mary Habershon
Evelyn’s wealthy family lived in a large house named Brook Lodge in Holmwood. Her father was a gentleman and his sons were educated at Winchester and Cambridge. Of her three brothers, only one survived the war.
Full biography of Evelyn Mary Habershon
Hilda Lee-Steere
Hilda was born in Western Australia. Her father’s family were the Lee-Steeres of Jayes Park and her grandfather had named his 100,000 acres of land in Australia Jayes Station. Hilda arrived in England by sea in 1915 and the following year she went to work as a VAD nurse in a mansion close to the family’s ancestral home.
Full biography of Hilda Lee-Steere
Phyllis Bowen-Goodwin
Phyllis was the daughter of a wallpaper manufacturer. She grew up in Wimbledon but was living (with her mother and grandmother) at her grandmother’s sister’s home, The Hive in Holmwood, when she went to work at Anstie.
Full biography of Phyllis Bowen-Godwin
Dorothy Margaret Marshall
The daughter of the vicar of Ockley was 20 when she went to work at Anstie.
Full Biography of Dorothy Margaret Marshall
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