A Gypsy and a Rebel: Lillian Urmston in the Spanish Civil War

At the age of nineteen, Lillian Urmston volunteered her services as a nurse in the Spanish Civil War, because she believed it was ’the right thing to do.’ Her lack of political affiliations [and rebellious attitude] inevitably brought suspicion from some of her more ideological peers, while through her clinical work she earned the respect of some of the leading battlefield physicians of the day, including Len Crome, Chief Medical Officer of the 35th Army Corps and Dr Reggie Saxton, a pioneer of blood transfusion. Later, the civil and military authorities in Britain would draw on her practical expertise in the latest developments in trauma care as they made their preparations for the Second World War.

This new biography by Linda Palfreeman and Alicia García López brings alive Lillian’s experiences working in front line field hospitals and drumming up support for the republic during her periods of leave back home in Britain.