Rare WW1 frontline nurse's scrapbook sells for £1,100

Madeline Riva Baxter’s passport photo, issued shortly before she embarked for France as a Red Cross canteen volunteer.

A scrapbook created by a World War One nurse on the frontline has been sold at auction for £1,100.

The book was owned by Madeline Baxter, a volunteer with the British Committee of the French Red Cross at an English Ladies Canteen in Vitry-le-François.

It covers the years 1918 to 1919 as she witnessed the destruction of Vitry, which was at the centre of fighting during the First Battle of the Marne.

Estimated between £1,000 and £1,500, it sold for £1,100 to an online bidder.

The scrapbook details Ms Baxter's experiences from 1918 to 1919

Born in July 1890 in Lancashire, Ms Baxter joined the English Ladies Canteen in Vitry-le-François shortly before it opened on 26 March 1918.

She would also have been close to the frontline on the last major German offensive on the Western Front, The Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918.

Along with newspaper clippings, the 20 page scrapbook also includes postcards of Vitry-le-Francois, unpublished photos of prisoners of war, African American troops, volunteers and military personnel.

Auctioneer Gareth Wasp, said it was a "rare account of the experiences of a woman during the war close to the frontline"

Gareth Wasp, head auctioneer at RWB Auctions in Royal Wootton Bassett, said she was also a member of a Voluntary Aid Detachment before sailing to France.

"This is a rare account of the experiences of a woman during the war close to the frontline," he said.

"Her scrapbook charts her journey via Le Havre, her work in the canteen and her social life among her fellow volunteers and the French, British and American soldiers moving through the region.

"Red Cross canteens are a poorly understood function of the First World War's female-dominated civilian voluntary services," he explained.

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