[Guzzman]

Morning all!

I have managed to enlarge the photograph of the Naval Nursing Sisters at RNH Haslar and will be scanning it in later. There are nine Sisters in the photograph, including a Head Sister. Three appear to be wearing rectangular 'civilian' style ornate nurses buckles. One appears to be wearing what could possibly be a silvered naval officers buckle and five aren't wearing any obvious buckle at all - including the Head Sister. As this picture shows nine of the then twenty-nine sisters then serving it hardly suggests that a silvered VQC buckle was standard issue! Civilian nurses always traditionally bought their own buckles and as the Naval Nursing Service was established as a civilian one (its Sisters being recruited from civilian hospitals and not being required to "join the navy" in the sense of not being subject to the Naval Discipline Act) I feel that this was the case with the Naval Nursing Service.

The Sister who appears to be wearing a 'naval' buckle could well have purchased hers herself - either by having a standard officers buckle silvered or maybe even wearing one from the Naval Forces of Victoria as she may have thought it appropriate!

Further research I have undertaken suggests that naval waistbelt clasps were NOT worn on a regular basis by members of the Naval Nursing Service during the Victorian period.

Section VIII of the "Regulations for the female Nursing Staff in the Royal Naval Hospitals at Haslar and Plymouth" published in 1884, lists full details of the uniform to be issued to members of the Naval Nursing Service and how and when the uniform was to be worn. No mention is made of VQC naval waistbelt clasps.

And I have had to change my earlier comment that Sisters of the Naval Nursing Service were considered to be naval officers (and therefore entitled to wear a naval officers waistbelt clasp) by being placed on the Navy List. They were only considered "officers of the hospitals, taking a position immediately after the surgeons". Initially they were put on the Established List of the Civil Service and were only added to the Navy List out of courtesy! And from 1884 to 1889 only the names of the Head Sisters were included.

As I said, this now leads me to believe that VQC waistbelt clasps were not routinely worn by members of the Naval Nursing Service. They are not included in any lists of their uniform and the fact one nurse amongst several others appears to be wearing one does not constitute enough evidence to say that all members of the Naval Nursing Service wore such a clasp. I therefore feel that my original comment is correct. The Victorian clasp which featured in the original image at the beginning of this discussion is NOT a Naval Nursing Service clasp, but is in all probabilty a swordbelt clasp from the Naval Forces of Victoria.

I'll put the image up later and then I'll shut-up on this topic before I become even more boring!

Pete