WWI Red Cross Nurses' Scrapbook To Feature In January 2024 Sale At RWB Auctions

Our first antiques and interiors auction is approaching fast. As we prepare to launch the catalogue for this two-day sale we are spotlighting some stand-out pieces going under the hammer on 24 and 25 January.

First up is an unusual scrapbook, compiled by a woman volunteering on the Western Front during the latter days of the First World War.

Madeline Riva Baxter was born in 1890 in Rainhill, Lancashire. Her scrapbook primarily covers the years 1918 through 1919 while Madeline was volunteering with the British Committee of the French Red Cross at an ‘English Ladies Canteen’ in Vitry-le-François.

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

While much has been written about the role of the Red Cross in the First World War, their canteens represent a poorly understood aspect of the female-dominated civilian voluntary services. Based at railroad junctions and other stopping points, Red Cross canteens served millions of meals to soldiers passing through and were staffed primarily by women, often from middle and upper class backgrounds. While this work may sound genteel compared to the nursing duties that were also taken on by unpaid female Voluntary Aid Detachment members, canteen workers like Madeline were often operating not far from the front lines.

Madeline joined the canteen in Vitry-le-François shortly before it opened on 26 March 1918. 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. The Vitry Red Cross canteen was documented by painter Isabel Codrington and official war artist Olive Edis, who was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to photograph women’s activities on the Western Front.

Included in Madeline’s scrapbook are contemporary newspaper clippings and postcards of Vitry-le-François and the surrounding area, as well as unpublished photos including of prisoners of war, African American troops and various named volunteers and military personnel. The scrapbook also features drawings and inscriptions, apparently from a range of contributors, as well as official documents and correspondence. Towards the back, Madeline has pasted in original photographs a female Red Cross member receiving the Croix de Guerre, possibly named Aethelflaed Benson.

Madeline Riva Baxter’s photos of herself are labelled ‘M.R.B’. Most of the images in her scrapbook are dated and annotated.

Vitry-le-François is located in the Marne department of France, South-East of Reims. Madeline would have seen the destruction wrought on Vitry which was at the centre of fighting during the First Battle of the Marne. She would have nervously followed the progress of the last major German offensive on the Western Front, culminating in the Second Battle of the Marne in July 1918.

Little is known about Madeline’s life after the armistice of November 1918. She seems to have spent some time in Malta before returning to Lancashire. Her scrapbook represents an opportunity for a dedicated historian or militaria collector to delve into a seldom seen perspective on the Great War.

Madeline Riva Baxter’s scrapbook has been valued at £1,000 to £1,500. More images are available in our online catalogue, available on our website, Easy Live Auction and The Saleroom.