The Royal Red Cross is a military decoration awarded in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth for exceptional services in military nursing.
The award was established on 27 April 1883 by Queen Victoria, with a single class of Member. A second and lower class, Associate, was added during World War I in 1917.
The award is made to a fully trained nurse of an officially recognised nursing service who has shown exceptional devotion and competency in the performance of actual nursing duties, over a continuous and long period, or who has performed some very exceptional act of bravery and devotion at his or her post of duty. This decoration had the distinction of being conferred exclusively to females until 1976. It is conferred on members of the nursing services regardless of rank. Holders of the second class are promoted to the first class on second awards.
Recipients of the Royal Red Cross are entitled to use the post-nominal letters "RRC" or "ARRC" for Members and Associates respectively.
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Famous quotes containing the words red cross, royal, red and/or cross:
“Compared to Clouseau, Attila the Hun was a Red Cross volunteer.”
—Blake Edwards (b. 1922)
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)
“I died before bedtime came
But my womb was bellowing
And I felt with my bare fall
A blazing red harsh head tear up
And the dear floods of his hair.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“I’d take off all my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it out toward the island.”
—John Berryman (1914–1972)