Elizabeth Smellie (1884-1968)

Elizabeth Smellie stamp - CanadaElizabeth Smellie was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, to Dr Thomas Stuart Traill Smellie (Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario 1905-1911) and Janet Eleanor Lawrie in March 1884. She trained as a nurse at Johns Hopkins College, Baltimore.

During World War One, as a member of the Canadian Army Nursing Service, she served at the temporary military hospital at Cliveden, Buckinghamshire, in the estate of Lady Astor. Later she became matron of the Sir John Moores Barracks Hospital in Shorncliffe, Folkestone, where thousands of Canadian soldiers were treated. In 1917, she received a first class Royal Red Cross for her wartime service, presented by King George V at Buckingham Palace. After returning to Canada at the end of the war, she went on to Boston for further training to teach public health nursing. She returned to Canada and taught at McGill University in Montreal for two years.

Elizabeth Smellie founded the Victorian Order of Nurses and was Chief Superintendent from 1924 to May 1947. During World War Two she was Matron-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (1940-1955). During this time she laid the foundations of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps which was established in 1941. She was the first woman to achieve the rank of Colonel in the Canadian Army (1944).

Colonel Smellie became a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in recognition of her service in 1934. She died in 1968 and was buried at the Riverside Cemetery in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

The stamp featured here is the 46 cents stamp issued on 17 January 2000 by the Canada Post Corporation in their Millennium Collection of Humanitarians and Peacekeepers. Designed by Margaret Susan Issenman, the stamp features a dove of peace above a nurse with a patient and inserts of Pauline Vanier (1898-1991, a World War Two Red Cross volunteer, recipient of the Jacques Cartier Medal (Fr) and ‘First Lady’ of Canada) and Colonel Elizabeth Smellie. Based on photographs by National Archives of Canada, based on an illustration by Bonnie Ross. A first issue of 1,000,000 was printed by Ashton-Potter Canada Ltd.

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