Remembering Sister Mary Watson

Alongside Jessie McRobbie, Sister Mary Watson is one of two QAIMNS nurses interred in Ford Road Cemetery in Crieff. Mary died of influenza on November 6th in Farco Military Hospital, Sailsbury, Wiltshire aged thirty-two (a day before Jessie McRobbie). Her familial headstone is in excellent condition, and cared for by the CWGC.

Mary was born in Forfar, Angus, on October 12th, 1886, the second daughter of Carter Peter and Margaret (nee Miller). At the 1891 Census, the Watson family resided at 14 Dundee Road, Forfar, with Peter working as a dairyman. I believe that Mary had relocated to Crieff by 1901; census data from that year lists a fourteen-year-old Mary Watson employed as a domestic servant at Innerpeffray Lodge. By 1911 the rest of the Watson family had moved to Crieff and resided at Star Cottage on East High Street.

Tragedy was to befall on the Watson family in June 1915 when Mary’s brother Donald fell at Gallipoli, Turkey, aged thirty-one, whilst serving in the 5th Battalion of the Royal Scots.

Mary trained as a nurse at the Brownlow Hill Infirmary in Liverpool between 1914 and 1917. She also nursed at the Peeblesshire Fever Hospital in the Scottish Borders during her training. She applied to QAIMNS in 1917 and was accepted. I believe her first placement with QAIMNS was in Guildford, Surrey before being transferred west to Farco Hospital in 1918.

Following Mary’s death, the Army Medical Service Director General wrote to Peter to express his condolences. Mary died unmarried and with no offspring. The army provided monies to her family to cover funeral costs.

Mary is commemorated alongside Jessie McRobbie on the Crieff War Memorial. Donald’s name is on the memorial too.

Source: ScotlandsPeople, Ancestry, Strathearn Herald