Pearl Corkhill

Elizabeth Pearl Corkhill was born on 11 March 1887 at Tilba Tilba, She was the second of three children of William Henry Corkhill, a grazier, cheesemaker and amateur photographer, and his wife Frances.

Pearl grew up on her father’s property, and received her early education from a governess. She later attended Tilba Tilba Public School. After training at Burilda private hospital in Summer Hill, Sydney, she graduated as a general nurse in 1914. On 4 June 1915 she joined the Australian Army Nursing Service, Australian Imperial Force, as a staff nurse.

She then served in Egypt and in France. From June to August 1918 Pearl was attached to the 38th British Casualty Clearing Station, near Abbeville, France. During the week of the 27th July the CCS experienced two German air raids. Pearl Corkhill was on night duty at the time but ‘she continued to attend to the wounded without any regard to her own safety, though enemy aircraft were overhead. Her example was of the greatest value in allaying the alarm of the patients.’ For her ‘courage and devotion’ she was awarded the Military Medal, becoming one of only seven Australian nurses to receive that award during World War I.

She was to write home that she would have to face ‘old George and Mary (King George V and Queen Mary) to get the medal’ and that it would cost her a new mess dress as her old one was worn out. However, she never visited Buckingham Palace to receive her award, and the medal was finally presented to her in 1923 by Lord Forster, Australia’s seventh Governor-General.

Pearl Corkhill returned to Australia in March 1919 and her AANS appointment was terminated on 22 June. She then held various private nursing positions both in Australia and overseas until, in 1951, she was appointed Senior Sister at Bega District Hospital. Ten years later, she retired to Akolele, overlooking Wallaga Lake.

She was highly respected in the district and was often asked to preside at local events. A skilful horsewoman, she led a parade of returned soldiers and gave a speech at the Cobargo Show in May 1919, and in 1975, when she was 88 years old, again led a parade on horseback at the Cooma Show.

In her old age, Pearl Corkhill sorted and captioned about 1,000 glass plate negatives of photographs taken by her father before donating them to the National Library of Australia. These photographs provide a rare and extremely valuable record of life in a small but thriving rural community at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1983 the Library published Taken at Tilba, a selection of seventy-eight of these photographs.

Pearl Corkhill died on 4 December 1985 at Dalmeny and was buried in Narooma cemetery. She had never married. Her Military Medal and other service medals are held by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.