QARANC

» Site Map

» Home Page

Historical Info

» Find Friends - Search Old Service and Genealogy Records

» History

» QAIMNS for India

» QAIMNS First World War

» Territorial Force Nursing Service TFNS

» WW1 Soldiers Medical Records

» Field Ambulance No.4

» The Battle of Arras 1917

» The German Advance

» Warlencourt Casualty Clearing Station World War One

» NO 32 CCS Brandhoek - The Battle of Passchendaele

» Chain of Evacuation of Wounded Soldiers

» Allied Advance - Hundred Days Offensive

» Life After War

» Auxiliary Hospitals

» War Graves Nurses




» Book of Remembrance

» Example of Mentioned in Despatches Letter

» Love Stories

» Autograph Book World War One

» World War 1 Letters

» Service Scrapbooks

» QA World War Two

» Africa Second World War

» War Diaries of Sisters

» D Day Normandy Landings

» Belsen Concentration Camp

» Italian Sailor POW Camps India World War Two

» VE Day

» Voluntary Aid Detachment

» National Service

» Korean War

» Gulf War

» Op Telic

» Op Gritrock

» Royal Red Cross Decoration

» Colonels In Chief

» Chief Nursing Officer Army

» Director Army Nursing Services (DANS)

» Colonel Commandant

» Matrons In Chief (QAIMNS)

Follow us on Twitter:
Follow qaranchistory on Twitter


» Grey and Scarlet Corps March

» Order of Precedence

» Motto

» QA Memorial National Arboretum

» NMA Heroes Square Paving Stone

» NMA Nursing Memorial

» Memorial Window

» Stained Glass Window

» Army Medical Services Monument

» Recruitment Posters

» QA Association

» Standard

» QA and AMS Prayer and Hymn

» Books

» Museums



Former Army Hospitals

UK

» Army Chest Unit

» Cowglen Glasgow

» CMH Aldershot

» Colchester

» Craiglockhart

» DKMH Catterick

» Duke of Connaught Unit Northern Ireland

» Endell Street

» First Eastern General Hospital Trinity College Cambridge

» Ghosts

» Hospital Ghosts

» Haslar

» King George Military Hospital Stamford Street London

» QA Centre

» QAMH Millbank

» QEMH Woolwich

» Medical Reception Station Brunei and MRS Kuching Borneo Malaysia

» Military Maternity Hospital Woolwich

» Musgrave Park Belfast

» Netley

» Royal Chelsea Hospital

» Royal Herbert

» Royal Brighton Pavilion Indian Hospital

» School of Physiotherapy

» Station Hospital Ranikhet

» Station Hospital Suez

» Tidworth

» Ghost Hunt at Tidworth Garrison Barracks

» Wheatley


France

» Ambulance Trains

» Hospital Barges

» Ambulance Flotilla

» Hospital Ships


Germany

» Berlin

» Hamburg

» Hannover

» Hostert

» Iserlohn

» Munster

» Rinteln

» Wuppertal


Cyprus

» TPMH RAF Akrotiri

» Dhekelia

» Nicosia


Egypt

» Alexandria


China

» Shanghai


Hong Kong

» Bowen Road

» Mount Kellett

» Wylie Road Kings Park


Malaya

» Kamunting

» Kinrara

» Kluang

» Penang

» Singapore

» Tanglin

» Terendak


Overseas Old British Military Hospitals

» Belize

» Falklands

» Gibraltar

» Kaduna

» Klagenfurt

» BMH Malta

» Nairobi

» Nepal


Middle East

» Benghazi

» Tripoli



Field Hospitals

» Camp Bastion Field Hospital and Medical Treatment Facility MTF Helmand Territory Southern Afghanistan

» TA Field Hospitals and Field Ambulances

QAIMNSR Tippet


Photograph and information about the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve scarlet and grey edged tippet cape worn by World War 2 Nursing Sisters and Staff Nurses

Tippet Nursing Sister Lieutenant QAIMNSR

Nursing Sisters and Staff Nurses of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve wore a tippet much like the one pictured above. This one, with Lieutenant pips, would have been post 1941, when QAs were given an army commission and rank structure. Regular members of the QAIMNS wore scarlet tippets whilst the Reserve members wore grey with a scarlet edge. The QAIMNSR would have worn their silver service badge on the right side lapel of their tippet, more about these can be read on the QA Officer Medal page which explains the difference between the regular QAs and the Reserve with their R in the centre of the medal.

Original QAIMNS uniforms were supplied by Shoolbreds in Tottenham Court Road until they went into liquidation in 1931. Thereafter the QA officers purchased their uniforms from Harrods.

There are several interesting theories and their sources about why nurses wore these style of capes, dating back to WWI, and in particular why QAs wore tippets. These can be read on the why QA's wear a grey dress and beret page.





Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.



PTSD assistance dog Lynne book


My PTSD assistance dog, Lynne, and I have written a book about how she helps me with my military Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression. I talk about my time in the QAs and the coping strategies I now use to be in my best health.

Along the way, I have had help from various military charities, such as Help for Heroes and The Not Forgotten Association and royalties from this book will go to them and other charities like Bravehound, who paired me with my four-legged best friend.

I talk openly about the death of my son by suicide and the help I got from psychotherapy and counselling and grief charities like The Compassionate Friends.

The author, Damien Lewis, said of Lynne:

"A powerful account of what one dog means to one man on his road to recovery. Both heart-warming and life-affirming. Bravo Chris and Lynne. Bravo Bravehound."

Download.

Buy the Paperback.


QARANC Poppy Pin Badge Royal British Legion RBL
This beautiful QARANC Poppy Pin Badge is available from the Royal British Legion Poppy Shop.




For those searching military records, for information on a former nurse of the QAIMNS, QARANC, Royal Red Cross, VAD and other nursing organisations or other military Corps and Regiments, please try Genes Reunited where you can search for ancestors from military records, census, birth, marriages and death certificates as well as over 673 million family trees. At GenesReunited it is free to build your family tree online and is one of the quickest and easiest ways to discover your family history and accessing army service records.

More Information.




Another genealogy website which gives you access to military records and allows you to build a family tree is Find My Past which has a free trial.







The owner of the cape in these photos thinks it is a World War Two tippet.

Cape Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve

This example has a label on the back with:

By Appointment To H.M. The Queen Boyd Cooper, 4 St George St, Hanover Sq, London, W.I.

By Appointment To HM The Queen Boyd Cooper 4 St George St Hanover Sq London WI

The owner would like to learn more about it, such as the date it was manufactured, why it may have belonged to an Australian nurse and if the Officer's pips were oxidised, brass or pewter. There are four holes on each shoulder so each pip has two clasps?

Inside Back QAIMNSR Tippet Cape

We thought that it may have been a post 1952 tippet due to the label saying By Appointment To H.M. The Queen, though the QAIMNS became the QARANC (Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps) in 1949, more of which can be read on the QA Corps Warrant page. So that contradicts each thought! Or were By Appointments during King George VI's reign given by his wife, Queen Elizabeth? It does look like the Queen Mother's coat of arms with two lions whilst Queen Elizabeth II has a lion and unicorn? If you can help with further information then please contact me.


reverse side qa officers cape



The QARANC Regimental Secretary informed the owner that the Royal Warrant in the badge belongs to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II which dates this garment post 6 February 1952. Since the QAs were given the Royal Warrant in 1949 then this makes the image above a Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Reserve) tippet, especially since the item is missing the small Danish Rose on the back where the threads are.




New post apocalyptic military survival thriller

Former Royal Air Force Regiment Gunner Jason Harper witnesses a foreign jet fly over his Aberdeenshire home. It is spilling a strange yellow smoke. Minutes later, his wife, Pippa, telephones him, shouting that she needs him. They then get cut off. He sets straight out, unprepared for the nightmare that unfolds during his journey. Everyone seems to want to kill him.

Along the way, he pairs up with fellow survivor Imogen. But she enjoys killing the living dead far too much. Will she kill Jason in her blood thirst? Or will she hinder his journey through this zombie filled dystopian landscape to find his pregnant wife?

The Fence is the first in this series of post-apocalyptic military survival thrillers from the torturous mind of former British army nurse, now horror and science fiction novel writer, C.G. Buswell.

Download Now.

Buy the Paperback.


If you would like to contribute to this page, suggest changes or inclusions to this website or would like to send me a photograph then please e-mail me.





Tina James, the Brand Content and Communications Manager of Alexandra.co.uk kindly supplied the following information:

Alexandra Workwear, near Bristol, recently completed an in-depth history of Alexandra, from our early beginnings as a drapery store in Bristol in 1854 through to the multinational company that we are today. This has also resulted in a book about our history and a film archive. Please see more info here: https://www.alexandra.co.uk/the-alexandra-story

I am about to start work researching another of our group brand names, that of Boyd Cooper, a company with a far longer history than Alexandra's, dating back to 1780, when it was a high-class tailoring business creating livery garments and military uniforms to gentry and the Royal household. I came across the page you have on your website, giving images of the Boyd Cooper red-edged tippet, in which you asked for more information.

Originally based in St James, Piccadilly, Boyd Cooper was a high-class tailoring business creating gentlemen's wear, livery garments and military uniforms to gentry and the Royal household. When the Royal Warrant was created in 1840, Boyd Cooper was one of these favoured suppliers.

By the 1890's, Boyd Cooper was making the first official nursing uniforms for the newly formed nursing organisations such as the Army Nursing Service and Princess Christian's Army Nursing service reserves. Established with the patronage of the Royal Family, these organisations nursed soldiers injured during military campaigns such as the Anglo-Boer. On the death of Queen Victoria, her son Edward VII became king and his wife (the same Princess Alexandra who gave our company its name) became Queen.

In 1902, she formed the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, and it was Boyd Cooper that designed and manufactured the iconic nursing uniforms worn by their nurses in both world wars.

Sadly, we have very little information about Boyd Coopers history through its 237 year history, (it has had a few different owners over the decades), hence the reason for our research project.

I am not sure of the actual date of manufacture of the tippet you have on your website but with the owner's permission, I would like to find out more! We still have a lady in our organisation who worked for the original Boyd Cooper company and it might be that she can shine a little more light on the date it was actually made.

It may well have been supplied to volunteers who served in Australia with QAIMNS and the Australian Army Nursing Corps (AANS), during WW1 and WW2 hence the Australian connection that the owner in your original post mentioned.

During World War One, 423 UK nurses volunteered to serve in Australia together with 130 Australians who worked with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service. 25 died on active service and 388 were decorated.

In World War Two, 3,477 women joined the AANS with 71 members losing their lives and 38 became Prisoners of War. 137 nurses were awarded decorations including two George Medals. In 1945, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, became the Honorary Colonel and in 1948 the service was renamed as the Royal Australian Army Nursing Service. Boyd Cooper may well have made the nursing garments for both wars.


Lieutenant Pat Finn recalls that in 1967:

My first uniform bill was the largest cheque I had ever written out back then (my scarlet cape with epaulettes cost 5 guineas, and my white head square 12 shillings). I also had a guidance for young officers' booklet.

Read more of Patricia's memories on the BMH Berlin page.





Free Book Operation wrath

Free Book.
The death of the Brotherhood will be avenged.
RAF gunner Jason Harper and a team of Special Air Service operators are enraged after the death of their brothers by a terrorist drone strike. They fly into south-eastern Yemen on a Black-op mission to gather intelligence and avenge the death of their comrades.
Can they infiltrate the Al-Queda insurgents' camp, stay undetected, and call down their own drone missile strike and get home safely?
Will they all survive to fight another day?
Operation Wrath is a free, fast-paced adventure prequel to the non-stop action The Fence series by military veteran author C.G. Buswell.
Download for free on any device and read today.





This website is not affiliated or endorsed by The Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC) or the Ministry of Defence.


» Contact

» Advertise

» QARANC Poppy Pin

» Poppy Lottery

» The Grey Lady Ghost of the Cambridge Military Hospital Novel - a Book by CG Buswell

» The Drummer Boy Novel

» Regimental Cap Badges Paintings


Read our posts on:

» Facebook

» Instagram

» Twitter


Offers

» Army Discounts

» Claim Uniform Washing Tax Rebate For Laundry

» Help For Heroes Discount Code

» Commemorative Cover BFPS 70th anniversary QARANC Association





Present Day

» Become An Army Nurse

» Junior Ranks

» Officer Ranks

» Abbreviations

» Nicknames

» Service Numbers

Ministry of Defence Hospital Units

» MDHU Derriford

» MDHU Frimley Park

» MDHU Northallerton

» MDHU Peterborough

» MDHU Portsmouth

» RCDM Birmingham

» Army Reserve QARANC


Photos

» Florence Nightingale Plaque

» Photographs


Uniform

» Why QA's Wear Grey

» Beret

» Army Medical Services Tartan

» First Time Nurses Wore Trousers AV Anti Vermin Battledress

» TRF Tactical Recognition Flash Badge

» Greatcoat TFNS

» Lapel Pin Badge

» Army School of Psychiatric Nursing Silver Badge

» Cap Badge

» Corps Belt

» ID Bracelet

» Silver War Badge WWI

» Officer's Cloak

» QAIMNSR Tippet

» QAIMNS and Reserve Uniform World War One

» Officer Medal

» Hospital Blues Uniform WW1


Events

» Armed Forces Day

» The Nurses General Dame Maud McCarthy Exhibition Oxford House London

» Edinburgh Fringe Stage Play I'll Tell You This for Nothing - My Mother the War Hero

» Match For Heroes

» Recreated WWI Ward

» Reunions

» Corps Day

» Freedom of Rushmoor

» Re-enactment Groups

» Military Events

» Remembrance

» AMS Carol Service

» QARANC Association Pilgrimage to Singapore and Malaysia 2009

» Doctors and Nurses at War

» War and Medicine Exhibition

» International Conference on Disaster and Military Medicine DiMiMED

» QA Uniform Exhibition Nothe Fort Weymouth


Famous QA's

» Dame Margot Turner

» Dame Maud McCarthy

» Lt Col Maureen Gara

» Military Medal Awards To QAs

» Moment of Truth TV Documentary

» Sean Beech

» Staff Nurse Ella Kate Cooke


Nursing

Nursing Jobs Vacancies UK

International Nurses Day

International Midwife Day


Info

» Search

» Site Map

» Contact

» Other Websites

» Walter Mitty Military Imposters

» The Abandoned Soldier



We are seeking help with some answers to questions sent by readers. These can be found on the Army Nursing page.



» Find QA's

» Jokes

» Merchandise

» Mugs

» Personalised Poster

» Poppy Badges

» Stamp

» Teddy Bears

» Pin Badges

» Wall Plaques

» Fridge Magnet


SHARE
© Site contents copyright QARANC.co.uk 2006 - 2024 All rights reserved.
Privacy/Disclaimer Policy