Tower and Town, November 2025 (view the full edition)A Wife's Anguish: Maude Manders
The newspapers called this the 'Surplus Two Million' women - the women these men would have married. The pain of loss was even more severely felt by the 240,000 widowed. Maude Braybrooke Vane (Mrs M Manders), married to Colonel Neville Manders, RAMC, was one of those widows. Colonel Neville Manders served as Assistant Director of Medical Services with the New Zealand and Australian Division during the Gallipoli campaign. Born 12 Dec 1859 in Marlborough, Colonel Manders was a prominent entomologist, a Fellow of the Entomological Society, and the Bombay Natural History Society. He had several species of butterflies named after him. He served in the 1885 Suakin Expedition and was awarded the Egypt Medal & Bar, and Khedives Star, then in Burma 1887 - 89 (India General Service Medal and two Bars) where he had been severely wounded. He married Maud Braybrooke at St. Michael's, Colombo, Ceylon, on 15 September 1900, aged 41. Stationed in Egypt, he wrote a memo requesting that 'should anything happen to him', to kindly cable Mrs Manders c/o Chateau Mon Choisi, Lausanne, Switzerland. He then went on loan from the RAMC to the NZ & Australian Division on 13 March, landing at Anzac Cove 25th April 1915. He was killed in action at Gallipoli, 9 August 1915, during the attack on Sari Bair, a barren hillside, and was buried on the beach at No. 3 Post. A record from Herbert, Mons, Anzac & Kut noted: 'Monday, August 9th, 1915. Bullets came streaming down our valley, and we put up a small wall of sacks, 3 feet high, behind which we slept. I was sitting at breakfast this morning listening to Colonel Manders talking, when suddenly I saw Charlie B. put his hand to his own head and say: 'By G----, he's killed!' Manders fell back dead, with a bullet through his temple'. Maude was notified of his death on 11 August by telegram. "Deeply regret to inform you your husband Colonel Manders reported killed in action in Gallipoli, 7 August' TH Donne, Records Officer. Maude, clearly shocked and distressed, began writing letters about this death, citing the conflicting dates and loss of his personal effects. She asked for 'a packet containing a gold ring, watch, private papers & diary which never reached her.' Maude provided evidence from a Trooper in the Auckland Mounted Rifles about the correct date of death. She pursued the War Office, NZ Records in London, the High Commissioner for New Zealand, all of which received extensive follow up. This included attempts to trace two soldiers, Sergeant Harper and Private Gorton (both NZMC, as his kit had been handed to these two men). Many of these letters came from hospitals, where she was a volunteer, including the East Lancashire Red Cross Hospital in Worsley and the Hopital Yvetot, north of Rouen. In 1916 the General Post Office informed her that: 'a full enquiry had been made, in this country and abroad, but it has not been possible to find any trace of the package in question, or any record of its posting. I am to explain that no record is kept of unregistered packets; but if the packet was registered in accordance with the usual practice and the office of posting can be furnished, further enquiries can be made' The package was never recovered. |
