Jean Aitken Bell

Jean Aitken Bell (1882 – 1957) was a Scottish nurse who served with Dr. Elsie Inglis's Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service in Serbia. She was among those who were given medals by both Britain and Serbia for war services, including enduring the dangerous winter mountain Serbian retreat, taking their injured patients over the mountains in winter to safety; she served July to December 1915. and went to Holytown Public School. She trained at Belvidere Hospital, Glasgow and worked in Thornton Hospital as a health visitor, then joined the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH) in July 1915 and travelled to Serbia, where she was employed in the Second Serbian Unit, under Dr. Alice Hutchison, and she was responsible for about 100 beds. During the moving battles, as the gunfire drew ever nearer the hospital over a two-week period, The downhill parts were the most challenging, as the nurses described to the press, with ponies having to have tails and heads held tight to stop them losing their footing. Bell died in 1957 in Cathcart, Glasgow.

Her medals were auctioned by auctioneer Dix Noonan in November 2019 (see images).