When the beep went off on Derek Page’s metal detector, he wondered what he would find underneath Worthing Pier. Then, a dull-looking piece of metal emerged from the sand. Derek took it home with his other finds and looked closer at the badge. As he cleaned off the muck, a shield emerged, and on the back was a name. Who was Lilian Green, and what was the significance of April 1923?
Derek traced the design to the Wakering Shield at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and contacted the Barts League of Nurses. League members are all ex Barts nurses and know the sentimental value of the iconic badge. An appeal to find any descendants was launched via the website and social media pages. Within moments, Jean Miller, who qualified as a Barts nurse in 1962, responded. Incredibly, she had a copy of the Barts League news from 1963, which listed an L Green, a married name of D’Alton, and an address in Sussex. Those details enabled the website manager to research the General Nursing Council Register, and more information emerged.
The badge engraved with Lilian Green April 1923
Lilian Florence Maud Green was born in 1898 in Gravesend. Her mother died when she was just seven years old. She was also an only child and had two half-siblings. Lilian’s nurse training began in 1919 at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. She would have nursed men returning from World War One with horrific battlefield injuries and gas exposure and also cared for people during the Flu Pandemic. Lilian qualified as a State Registered Nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1923 and became a qualified midwife in 1925, working in Cheltenham.
In 1930, Lilian went overseas to Iran, working in Abadan, where the British had just commenced oil exploration. She travelled with two other nurses on the Penton, leaving from Falmouth Harbour. Nellie W Wilson and Agnes L Stewart were midwives and nurses from Scotland. The nurses set up health clinics for oil workers and local people.
In 1934, Lilian married William D’Alton at the British Foreign Consulate in Tehran. He was an Irishman and the Deputy Chief Manager at the Imperial Bank of Persia in Tehran. The Imperial Bank of Persia was the first modern bank in Iran and established banknotes and a banking system in the country. However, because it was a British-owned bank, the Iranian nationalist government severely criticised it from the 1930s as it was perceived to be an example of imperialism and colonialism.
During the Second World War, in 1944, Lilian worked as a midwife at the Cherington Auxillary Hospital in Shipston on Stour.
Lilian and her husband settled in Sussex after the war. William died in 1966, and Lilian died in 1986 in a nursing home.
We have no idea how the badge came to be underneath Worthing Pier. However, when it was returned to the League, the pin had broken with no sign of corrosion, so it may have simply fallen from a jacket. The discovery of the Barts League badge has enabled us to tell the story of a young woman who started her training at Barts at a momentous time in history and nursed for many years.
