Rachel Fletcher

Female

Birth date: 1.10.1896 y.

Cabin: Healthcare workers-88

Biography:

Rachel Whitcombe was born on 10 January 1896 above her parents’ pub, The Crown & Anchor, near the Southampton docks. She was the fifth of seven children in a busy, close-knit, working middle-class family. Her father, James Whitcombe, was a retired merchant seaman who ran the public house, and her mother, Margaret Whitcombe (née Dodd), managed the household and helped with accounts. The family were Presbyterians, descendants of Scottish sailors who had settled in Hampshire in the 1870s.

Rachel grew up surrounded by dockworkers, sailors, and travelers, developing a lifelong sense of empathy and self-discipline. She attended St. Michael’s Girls’ School in Southampton, excelling in science and writing. From a young age, she was fascinated by medicine and midwifery, often helping her mother tend to injured sailors or sick children who came to the pub for comfort or food.
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Education and Nursing Training

By age 18, Rachel had enrolled at the London School of Medicine for Women (Royal Free Hospital), intending to train as a doctor specializing in midwifery. When the First World War began, she interrupted her studies to volunteer through St John Ambulance, later joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.).

She completed First Aid and Home Nursing certificates in early 1916, followed by several months of hospital probation and ward work at the Royal South Hants Infirmary in Southampton.

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Marriage and Family

Rachel married her childhood sweetheart, Thomas “Tom” Fletcher, on 14 November 1915 in a large Presbyterian wedding attended by family and friends from Southampton and Portsmouth. They spent a one-week honeymoon in Bath and Winchester before Tom left for service with the 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment in France.

Their first and so far only child, William “Will” Thomas Fletcher, was born 18 June 1916. In September 1916, Tom was captured during the Battle of the Somme and held as a Prisoner of War in Germany. Though she never admitted it aloud, Rachel felt privately relieved that his capture meant he would be safe from further fighting.

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Military Service

After recovering from childbirth, Rachel returned to light nursing duties and refresher classes in late 1916. Declared “Fit for Sea Duty” in November, she was assigned to HMHS Britannic as a V.A.D. nurse for hospital-ship service to the Aegean.

She embarked on 12 November 1916 from Southampton, one of the youngest Nurses aboard at just 20 years old.

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