St John Ambulance Association badge with 2 detached year bars : Miss Doris Grey, Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachments

Bronze St John Ambulance Association badge. The round badge has a Maltese cross in the centre within a circlet bearing the words 'THE ST JOHN AMBULANCE ASSOCIATION'. Four trefoil shapes are attached at even spaces around the circle, each bearing a flowering plant. The top trefoil has an attached suspension ring. The reverse of the badge is engraved '177045 DORIS GREY'. Two matching bronze bars, each with trefoil ends with the same flower, accompany the badge. One bears the year '1915' in raised numbers, the other '1916'. Each is engraved on the back '177045'. The bars are designed to be attached, in date order, to the top of the brooch.

Associated with the service of Miss Doris H Grey, a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD) of the Australian Red Cross between 1915 and 1919. The squad to which she was attached was based at Marrickville in Sydney. In 1919, in the course of her work as a VAD, Doris met and fell in love with Private Colin James Irwin, a recently returned serviceman who had lost his leg as a result of wounds received during the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. They were married at Petersham in 1920.