Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

05/11/1917

Date of Discharge

25/11/1918

Place of Enlistment

Melbourne, Victoria

Gender

Female

Other Name(s)

Also known as Lawlor, Hayes, Fennell

Date of Birth

01/10/1879

Place of Birth

Grantham, England

Address (at enlistment)

Canberra Hospital, Acton ACT

Occupation

Nurse

Next of Kin

Lt. Joseph A. Underwood (step-brother), Caulfield, Victoria

Final Rank

Staff Nurse

Final Unit

Australian Army Nursing Service

When Gertrude Lawler enlisted in Melbourne on 5 November 1917 she was perpetuating an invented personal history that led to her appointment as Matron at CanberraHospital. She claimed to have been born in Grantham in England in 1879 but she was actually baptised as Gertrude Frances Lawlor on 1 October 1883 at Monasterevin in Ireland, the only daughter of Irish farmers. She trained as a pharmacist, quite probably as she claimed, at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and to have gained her nursing certificate from Richmond Royal Hospital in England as well as a qualification in infectious diseases and training as a midwife. In 1906 she was appointed as Assistant Matron to the gaol at Derry where she met and married Jeremiah Hayes, a prison warder, in 1909 and gave birth to their daughter Gabriel three months later. Her marriage appears to have failed because in 1913 Lawler migrated to Victoria and it was then that she began reinventing her past.

Lawler became a nurse at Sunbury Hospital for the Insane in 1914 and worked in hospitals at Edenhope and Deniliquin before gaining an appointment as Matron at Canberra Hospital effective from February 1917. When the hospital was temporarily closed down in October that year she enlisted for service in the war. Her nominated next of kin, Joseph Underwood, who she claimed was her step-brother, was not a relation and other claims she later made about family members proved to be false as well. According to Lawler her father and two brothers were officers in the British Army but there are no records of such men. Nor did she admit that she was married, which would have precluded her from gaining posts as a nurse and from enlisting in the war.

About five weeks after enlisting Lawler arrived in India but spent the next three weeks sick in hospital. She then nursed at the Stationary Hospital in Bangalore, India from January 1918 until leaving to return to Australia in August 1918 where she was discharged on 25 November 1918. Lawler worked for a short period during 1919-1920 in Nauru as Matron and dispenser for the British Phosphate Commission. While there she met Kenneth Fennell, an analytical chemist who was also stationed on the island. They married in North Melbourne in November 1920, a possibly bigamous marriage on her behalf and one which should have precluded her return to Canberra to re-open the CanberraHospital in April 1921 as married women were, at the time, barred from working in the public service.

Lawler resigned as Matron of Canberra Hospital on 2 May 1928 after a Federal Government enquiry into the administration of the hospital. Although she was popular in the community and skilled in her work, her relations with other staff were poor and that led to her resignation. She later lived in North Sydney with her husband (using the surname Fennell) but suffered health and mental problems and began receiving a pension in 1944. In 1957 she returned to Ireland and died in Dublin on 10 January 1959. She was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Janet Newman and Jennie Warren, 'Royal Canberra Hospital. An Anecdotal History of Nursing 1914-1991', 1993
Peter Procter, 'Biographical Register of Canberra and Queanbeyan', Canberra, Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra, 2001 (p.175)
Patricia Clarke, 'Unravelling the Mystery Matron: Gertrude Frances Lawlor, AANS, Canberra Hospital, 1917, 1921-28', Canberra Historical Journal, CDHS, Sept. 2016 (pp.24-31)
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)