Dame Katharine Furse, GBE (23 November 1875, Bristol–1952), founder of the English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) force, was born the daughter of the poet and critic John Addington Symonds.
In 1900 she married the painter Charles Wellington Furse, who died prematurely in 1904. On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Mrs. Furse realised that the existing number of nurses would prove totally inadequate to deal with the enormous amount of work which might be expected, and in September 1914 she proceeded to France with a number of assistants, these forming the nucleus of the VAD force. In January 1915 she returned to England, and the VAD work was then officially recognised as a department of the Red Cross organization. Mrs. Furse resigned her position in 1917, and the same year became director of the WRNS. She received the order of the Royal Red Cross in 1916, and the GBE in 1917.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public ___domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
