Martha Jane STAPLE (née WARBRICK, aka Joan) [1894-1987]

Birth Index 

Martha Jane Warbrick birth  registered Quarter 4 1894 Carlisle Cumberland

Marriage to Kenneth Kingsley  Staple 14 November 1927. He died in 1931.

Register of Nurses 1943 

Martha Jane Staple nee Warbrick (sic) of 2 Snaefell Road Sea Cliff Whitehaven Certified 1919 - 1922 Camberwell Infirmary London. Registered 18 May 1923.

In 1he 1943 register at the same address in Whitehaven are Isabella Warbrick registered 24 September 1946 Fulham Hospital and Sara Elizabeth Warbrick registered 27 November 1931 Primrose Hospital Burnley

Passenger List Hong Kong to Liverpool arriving 27 October 1945

Mary Jane Staple 51 nurse address in UK Workington Cumberland She boarded at Columbo

Her sister Isabelle Warbrick  travelled on the same ship and also boarded at Columbo

Passenger List Hong Kong to Liverpool 1947

Isabella Warbrick Nurse 47 address in UK c/o Kingsley, Infirmary Road Workington Cumberland Country of future permanent address England

Death Index

Martha Jane Staple born 19 February  1894 died 1987 Sheffield Yorksire

Interested to come across the above info on Gwulo, submitted this year - Martha Jane Staple was my grandmother, I'verecently resumed writing her story and that of her sister - my great-aunt- Isabella Warbrick.  Can anyone tell me why they boarded the Empressof Australia at Colombo when fellow doctors and nurses interned in Stanley boarded in Hong Kong? best regards Deb Coxon  

Any ideas which ship Martha left Hong Kong on?

Barbara Anslow's mum and younger sister left Hong Kong on the Empress of Australia (see https://gwulo.com/node/12424), but if you continue reading the following pages of Barbara's diary you'll see she left several days later on HMS Smiter. Both ships reached Colombo at about the same time, and several people swapped ship there.

thanks David - lost count of how many helpful answers you've given me. I have Barbara's Tin Hats but hadn't picked up on that - mainly because although I had the manifests of Empress of Australia, showing my ladies and others of the medical staff, I hadn't noticed they boarded at Colombo. I will ask my cousin if she remembers them saying anything as she does recall them arriving back in Carlisle Station, under the gaslight, looking like skeletons - after better food on board ship for a few weeks! Think they must have been on the Smiter then, but don't know why

Oh dear! just reading Barbara's entry 22 September and see Olive has given her bunk to Miss E.Riley (aged 52, we thought of her as old!) - I remember Miss Riley visiting our home in Carlisle (I lived with my grandmother Joan Staple and great-aunt Isa Warbrick, and mum Sheila Wilkinson).  I thought her very old too as she had long grey hair.  I would be about six or seven. Barbara says most of the nursing sisters from Tweed Bay Hospital were on the Mess Deck - another thank goodness for Barbara's diaries!