// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Monica Stanley? A stan-ley good person.
Monica Maria Stanley (1879–25 July 1972) was a British teacher, who served as hospital head cook with the Stobart Field Hospital in Serbia during World War I. Her diary of her time in Serbia was published in 1916.
Life
[edit]Stanley was born in 1879 in Marple, Cheshire. Her parents were Dane Stanley and Flora Middleton Stanley and she was the youngest of four children.[1] Stanley trained in domestic science at Battersea Polytechnic[2] and later worked as a domestic science teacher.[1] She married Leon Daviel in 1927. Stanley died in London on 25 July 1972.[1]
Serbia
[edit]In May 1915, Stanley took a three-month leave from her job, which was later extended to six months in view of her important work, to travel with the Women’s Imperial Service League to establish a field hospital at Kragujevac.[3] The hospital was established by Mabel Stobart and overseen by Kate King-May. Stanley was in charge of provisioning and overseeing the kitchen.[4]
In the summer of 1915, Stanley contracted typhus and was treated at the Berry Unit in Kragujevac, then the British Fever Hospital in Belgrade. She transferred from running the kitchen to handling the field hospital’s accounts. After being evacuated during a shelling attack in August, she returned to England in October.[3][5]
Diary
[edit]Stanley published an account of the time, My Diary in Serbia,[6] which is useful for study of the field hospital and the experience of women volunteers in the Balkan front, including writer and illustrator Mabel Dearmer, who died of typhoid during her time there.[7] Stanley's position as head cook and provisioner means her diary also gives a glimpse into Serbian food practices at the time.[8][9]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 "Monica Maria Stanley". IWM Lives of the First World War. Retrieved 15 April 2026.
- ↑ Burt, Alison. "Remembering the lost generation: Battersea Polytechnic 1914-18". Wandsworth 1914-1918. 12 November 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2026.
- 1 2 White, Sally (2018-01-15). Ordinary Heroes: The Story of Civilian Volunteers in the First World War. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-7667-8.
- ↑ Stobart, Mabel Annie (1916). The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere. Hodder and Stoughton. p. 26.
- ↑ DiNardo, Richard L. (2015-04-14). Invasion: The Conquest of Serbia, 1915. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-4408-0093-1.
- ↑ Stanley, Monica M. (1916). My Diary in Serbia, April 1, 1915-Nov. 1, 1915. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, limited.
- ↑ Hammond, Andrew (2007). The Debated Lands: British and American Representations of the Balkans. University of Wales Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-7083-1965-9.
- ↑ Byrd, Melanie; Dunn, John P. (2020-12-02). Cooking through History: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Food with Menus and Recipes [2 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 317–8. ISBN 978-1-61069-456-8.
- ↑ Krippner, Monica (1980). The Quality of Mercy: Women at War, Serbia, 1915-18. David & Charles. pp. 80, 83. ISBN 978-0-7153-7886-1.