Charity in Uniform

New Zealand Journal of History, 50, 2 (2016) Charity in Uniform THE VOLUNTARY AID DETACHMENTS OF THE NEW ZEALAND RED CROSS ‘I HAVE WORN A UNIFORM ALL MY LIFE’, said Rachel Simpson, director of the New Zealand Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) in 1968. After wearing a school uniform she had dressed in uniforms representing various levels of the professional nursing hierarchy and, finally, as matron to the Royal New Zealand Air Force, nursing’s overlap with the military.1 Simpson was to die in office in 1972 as director of the uniformed branch of a voluntary organization, but not before overseeing the introduction of a new Red Cross uniform. Such was the resistance to change that a frustrated Simpson declared herself ‘fed up with the uniform’: ‘We should be bringing forward new and better ideas which show we are a bit more alive and not concerned only with what we look like …. I think it is high time we set our sights a little higher than we are at the moment’.2 Simpson may have spent a lifetime conforming to uniform codes, but her volunteers were proving less compliant. A generational divide between those loyal to a past uniform and all that it denoted and those who rejected uniforms altogether was played out within the Red Cross. The uniform change in the late 1960s preceded a wider transformation of New Zealand Red Cross structures, but also symbolized the diminishing presence of uniforms within New Zealand society more generally. The range of regulated clothing falls within a spectrum of highly prescriptive, required conformity, to the more informal, which may invoke, in Paul Fussell’s words, a ‘daily sartorial conflict’ around acceptability in particular social and employment settings.3 Discussions of uniforms which go beyond the minutiae of physical detail emphasize their role in the formation of identities, the enforcement of control and codes of behaviour, the mismatch between the intended meanings of uniforms and the actual experience of wearing them – and, by extension, uniform subversions.4 Much of the existing literature on uniforms focuses on authority contexts, such as the military, nursing and, to a lesser extent, schools.5 Where analysis moves beyond the descriptive, it is often to emphasize the loss of individuality that was involved in donning uniform, the sense of becoming, as a First World War soldier put it, ‘one small cog in the great machine’,6 with the delineation and 1 NZJH 20 Oct 2016 PRINT.indd 1 20/10/16 4:36 pm 2 MARGARET TENNANT enforcement of hierarchies another theme.7 Within the voluntary sector the adoption of uniforms was more commonly associated with youth groups such as boy scouts and girl guides,8 or with churches, especially – in the case of a religious denomination which quite deliberately adopted a military appearance and ranks – the Salvation Army.9 Uniforms have been integral to sports teams, though Charlotte Macdonald’s work on young women’s marching is one of the few with a New Zealand focus to link a particular genre of civilian uniforms with the social ethos of its time.10 Invented in New Zealand as a competitive sport, the ‘performance of order and highly orchestrated synchronicity’ associated with marching and its distinctive uniforms resonated reassuringly ‘with the predominant conservative and conventional strands in the mid- twentieth century’.11 The heyday of the Red Cross VADs closely overlapped with marching as a sport, and the VAD members, mostly women, shared a commitment to drill, participating in competitive public performances. But theirs was, in theory, a higher purpose: the acquisition of skills for impartial service under the emblem of a vast transnational humanitarian movement.12 This article uses uniforms as a lens onto the ways in which a voluntary organization presented itself externally, maintained internal recruitment and activity, and changed over time.13 The concern here is with a uniform that evolved to become highly prescribed, and which had forms that referenced on the one hand a female sphere, nursing, and on the other, male military domains. The role of the uniform within a voluntary context is a core element of the discussion. The uniformed ‘voluntary aids’ or ‘VAs’ (the term used within the Red Cross to describe individual members of its ‘VAD’ detachments) had a choice about their involvement in Red Cross activities, and were presented with competing outlets for their volunteering impulse.14 The uniform consequently played an important role within the Red Cross detachments, attracting some members and deterring others. It reinforced hierarchies while underscoring solidarity, for not all Red Cross volunteers worked within the VAD framework, adhering to its codes and disciplines; the uniform denoted an important internal demarcation between the VAs and others working for the Red Cross. And, while the rise and fall of the Red Cross VADs was a manifestation of the mid-twentieth-century uniform culture within a particular voluntary organization, it also symbolized the Red Cross’s changing external relationships with other voluntary agencies and professional groups, and with the New Zealand state. The Red Cross Emblem Whatever the form of Red Cross uniforms, internationally one consistent component was the red cross emblem. Many uniforms sport insignia of NZJH 20 Oct 2016 PRINT.indd 2 20/10/16 4:36 pm CHARITY IN UNIFORM 3 various kinds, but the red cross shape of five equal-sized red squares, normally presented on a white background, has always had a particular potency, meaning and complexity. One of the struggles of the New Zealand Red Cross was to prevent the emblem’s misappropriation by other organizations and by commercial ventures, but also to justify its use on the uniforms of its own members. The Society’s relationship with the state began with its emblem, for permission to use the red cross was given by the government as signatory to the Geneva Conventions; it has never been ‘owned’ by the national body. The explanation lies in the origins of the Red Cross movement and the dual purposes, protective and indicative, of the emblem. Like many charities, the Red Cross has its treasured foundation story, this one dating back to the Battle of Solferino in northern Italy in 1859. A Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant, came across the carnage of the battlefield, where tens of thousands lay dead or injured, without medical aid. Appalled, he enlisted the aid of surrounding villagers and other helpers to assist the wounded. On his return to Switzerland he promoted the idea of an organization, voluntary and impartial, to assist the wounded in war. The result was the ‘International Committee for Aid to the Wounded in War’, later the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The easily recognizable red cross, the inverse of the Swiss flag with its white cross on a red flag, was adopted by the emerging Red Cross movement in 1863 as a compliment to the host country of the ICRC.15 Under the Geneva Conventions the red cross emblem signified that people, places, vehicles and equipment were not part of a battle and that those under it were either receiving medical assistance or giving it impartially to those on either side of the conflict. Although not always honoured, its protective meaning was ‘don’t shoot; don’t harm!’ Any dilution of this meaning is seen as potentially endangering those working under the red cross. The emblem has been safeguarded under New Zealand law since 1913, and any use of it beyond the New Zealand Red Cross and the religious and medical services of the armed forces is currently a breach of New Zealand’s 1958 Geneva Conventions Act, potentially subject to prosecution.16 The second, indicative role of the red cross as a signifier of organizational activity and affiliation rather than battlefield protection was contested from the first Red Cross presence in New Zealand. A loosely affiliated branch of the British Red Cross was established in New Zealand during the First World War, but its association with St John prevented the emergence of a distinct national society until the 1930s. Even though the government started prosecuting retailers who misused the symbol for commercial purposes during the First World War, the red cross was widely displayed by a whole range of individuals NZJH 20 Oct 2016 PRINT.indd 3 20/10/16 4:36 pm 4 MARGARET TENNANT and patriotic organizations involved in raising funds for sick and wounded soldiers. At one point the Red Cross Record complained that the emblem was used to raise funds for combatants and even, in one instance, an aeroplane, both in contradiction of Red Cross ideals.17 In New Zealand, as elsewhere, the emblem was a more open motif than it was to become after the Second World War, and Red Cross ideals of neutrality and impartial world-wide humanitarianism came a poor second to nationalistic and patriotic feeling.18 The red cross was worn not only by members of the army medical services, but by women undertaking first aid training, carrying around collection boxes and working in soldiers’ convalescent homes, where they identified with St John or the Red Cross – or both, since St John claimed the red cross as part of its wartime livery. Soon after the formation of an independent Red Cross Society in 1931, it was given permission by the Minister of Defence to use the emblem and was recognized as the national Red Cross organization for New Zealand. Even so, this status was contested in wartime by St John, and the military appears not to have formally recognized the New Zealand Red Cross as an auxiliary to the armed forces until October 1945.

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