Royal Red Cross
decoration for contribution in health services
The Royal Red Cross (RRC) is a military decoration awarded in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth for exceptional services in military nursing. It was created in 1883, and the first two awards were to Florence Nightingale and Jane Cecilia Deeble. Deeble had served in Zulu Kingdom and the Colony of Natal during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879, and she had noted that the work of the nurses was not recognised officially.
Foundation and first awards
Queen Victoria established the award by Royal Proclamation on 27 April 1883. The decoration was to be conferred, as recommended by the Secretary for State for War or First Lord of the Admiralty, on ladies for special exertions in the providing of nursing for sick and wounded soldiers and sailors and on nursing sisters for special devotion and competency displayed in nursing duties for the army in the field or in the military and naval hospitals In addition, the Royal Red Cross could be worn by Queens and Princesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. At this time there was a single class of the award.
The first awards were made in May 1883 under provision of Queen Victoria's warrant. The recipients included Florence Nightingale and Jane Cecilia Deeble. Deeble had served in Zululand and she had noted that the work of the nurses was not recognised officially. The award was created after this comment was passed to the Queen's senior official, Sir Henry Ponsonby, after he was told that "a word of recognition from the Queen … would make her and them [i.e.
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This entry incorporates text from “Royal Red Cross” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.