Georgina Pope Statue at the Valiants Memorial

Amid the fourteen statues at the Valiants Memorial, commemorating leading figures from the military history of Canada, stands the bust of Georgina Pope, a notable nurse and the first Matron of the Canadian Army Medical Corps. The statue was created by Marlene Hilton Moore and John McEwen and unveiled at the memorial dedication on November 5th, 2006.

Georgina Pope (1862-1938) was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. At 19, she traveled to NYC to study nursing. After completing her training, she was appointed superintendent of the Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, DC, and founded a new nursing school. In October 1899, on the outbreak of the Second Boer War, she returned to Canada to volunteer for the nursing service and serve as the commander of the first group of Canadian nurses to go overseas, in charge of operating the military hospital. For her accomplishments and distinguished service in the field, she received the Queen’s South Africa Medal and became the first Canadian to be awarded the Royal Red Cross.

In 1908, at 46, she was appointed first Matron of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, training civilian nurses to operate in the field in case of war; her work was credited with creating the position of military nursing as a fully-integrated role for women. Pope’s enterprise proved critical when WW1 broke out, and Pope’s nurses were dispatched to the European battlefields. In 1917, at 55, she joined her crew of nurses and ran field hospitals in England and France until the war ended. On her return to Canada, she retired from the service. She died at the age of 76.

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