Shortly before the coming of the railway in 1873, George moved his businesses to Benalla where he built the Victoria Hotel.
After her schooling in Benalla, Gertrude trained as a nurse at the Melbourne Hospital and completed her training in November 1902.
For reasons now unknown, Sister Gertrude sailed for India.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Britain maintained an army of 215,000 on the Indian subcontinent.
Although dismissed by the British because it was part British and part Indian, the British Indian Army was more than double the size of the then British Army and still engaged in frequent wars along the north-west frontier.
Apart from several skirmishes in Africa against native forces and its disastrous showing in the two Boer Wars, the British Army itself had not been in real action since the Crimean War. That war ended in 1856.
Because of India’s climate, diseases and wars, there was plenty of work for Sister Gertrude but there was still time for personal matters.
In 1906, while in Melbourne for a visit home, she and Thomas Froggatt, chief or first officer of SS Hymettus, married.
Hymettus was a ship that travelled between Calcutta and Australia.
It can be presumed that Sister Gertrude travelled to and from India aboard Hymettus and caught Froggatt’s eye.
That same year of their wedding, Froggatt was superintending fumigation of Hymettus in Calcutta.
This was regularly done by burning sulphur. Froggatt went into the hold with methylated spirits to encourage the sulphur to burn more fiercely.
However, he spilt some methylated spirits. It enveloped Froggatt in flames.
The crew smothered the flames and removed him to safety. It was too late. Froggatt’s entire body was burnt. He lingered for a week. Sister Froggatt was now a widow.
By 1914, Sister Froggatt, or ‘Froggie’ as she was informally known, was back in Australia, living in Benalla and working as a nurse.
Her unmarried brother, George Winton Chandler, had inherited his father’s businesses and hotel when their father died in 1903.
In 1917, her brother died and ‘Froggie’ benefited from his estate.
It was sufficient to buy ‘Winfield’, a private hospital run by Sister Yearwood in Arundel Street. The hospital was opposite the Anglican church.
Her hospital handled general cases but, by 1917, she had also qualified in midwifery.
‘Froggie’ renamed her hospital ‘Lemnos’ after the Greek island, the site of dozens of military hospitals taking casualties from Gallipoli.
There were Lemnos hospitals all over Australia after the Great War.
In 1919, during the Spanish Flu epidemic, ‘Froggie’ established a tent in the showgrounds where cases could be isolated.
It was needed for only one case with minor symptoms. A critical local newspaper preferred the High School but ‘Froggie’ knew isolation was essential.
‘Froggie’, a kindly soul, conducted her hospital for many years.
Sister Gertrude Froggatt died in 1952 in Rosemore Hospital aged 82.
She is buried in Benalla Cemetery in an unmarked grave. The Chandler men are also buried there.
— John Barry
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