The Only English Woman Soldier

[jay dubaya]

Has anyone read 'The Only English Woman Soldier, Late Royal Engineers, Fifty-First Division 179th Tunneling Company' by Dorothy Lawrence. I get a lot of books through inter library loans but sadly this one cannot be found. Is it worth investing in ?

Jon

[centurion]

Presumably it means the only woman soldier in the British Army. At least one woman from the UK served in the Serbian army - as a sgt major in the infantry, seeing action and retiring in the mid 20s as a commissioned officer in the Jugoslav army. She also found time to get married (brave man who proposed to the sgt major).

[jay dubaya]

Yes that's right centurion.

Dorothy Lawrence posed as a man with forged identity papers as Pte Denis Smith of the 1st Bn Leicestershire Regiment, she headed for the front, eventually arriving on the Somme by bicycle and spent a couple of weeks with 179th Tunnelling Coy RE. She handed herself in to the CO and was promptly arrested interrogated as a spy and declared a prisoner of war.

In 1919 she claimed to have been raped by her church guardian, she was institutionalised as insane in 1925 and died at Friern Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) in 1964. Little else is known of her life after 1919.

I think it could be an interesting read but would just like to know if anyone has come across her before,

cheers, Jon

[charlesmessenger]

It is certainly an entertaining read. She really wanted to be a war correspondent, but no newspaper would take her seriously. There was a thread on her some time ago on the Forumj.

Charles M

[jay dubaya]

Thanks for the reply Charles, was she not taken seriously because of her gender?

Jon

ps must commend you on 'The Day We Won The War', I've still a couple of chapters still to go but have learned a considerable amount of a period of the GW that I knew little about.

[charlesmessenger]

Jon

Exactly, female war correspondents were unheard of at the time. In any event Dorothy was, I think, only 19 years old.

Delighted you are enjoying my book.

Charles M

[auchonvillerssomme]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Lawrence

[auchonvillerssomme]

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/432132....ght_like_a_man/

[jay dubaya]

Thanks for the links Mick

[John Gilinsky]

Incredibly interesting and inspiring that a fascinating story like this was found just recently. I am sure that there are more like her and other fascinating stories many of which were not documented but some of course that are and are just waiting discovery through local or regional archival collections.

John

[jay dubaya]

My thoughts entirely John, I first came across Dorothy Lawrence last year whilst researching a couple of former patients of Colony Hatch.

Jon

[John Gilinsky]

Thanks Jay. I am bound to come up myself with several if not many interesting personal and human interest stories once biographical details emerge from my shellshock dbs.

John

[jay dubaya]

I'd very much like to hear of what you may uncover in the future John,

Jon