Vera Christina Chute Collum
| Miss Vera Christina Chute Collum | |||||||||
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| Born | 1883 | ||||||||
| Died | 1957 | ||||||||
| Residence |
4 Milton Chambers, 12 Cheyne Walk, SW10 Well Bottom, East Melbury, Shaftesbury, Dorset [1929] Withyfold, Wonham Way, Peaslake, Guildford, Surrey [1935] | ||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
1924.04.15 proposed by H.J.E. Peake, seconded by E.N. Fallaize
1957.03.07 death noted
Notes From Elsewhere
Vera Christina Chute Collum was a British anthropologist, journalist, photographer, radiographer and writer. She was born in India in 1883 and came to England as a child.
Vera was in charge of the press office at the headquarters of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in London when war broke out and she volunteered to help with the Scottish Women's Hospitals. She was sent to Royaumont Abbey in northern France, which was set up as a military hospital - known as Hôpital Auxiliare 301 (HA 301) - to treat wounded French soldiers. Initially employed as an orderly, Vera was soon trained to become a radiographer to help out in the newly-formed radiography department of the hospital, which was the envy of the French military medical officers. She became extremely skilled and was kept very busy, her work as a radiographer saving many lives.
On 24th March 1916, after a period of leave and much needed rest in England, Vera was badly injured during a torpedo attack on the cross-channel ferry on which she was returning to France. The S.S. 'Sussex' was torpedoed by a U-boat and badly damaged on her way from Folkestone to Dieppe with 53 crew and 325 passengers. The whole of the bow was blown up, forward of the Bridge. The lifeboats were launched but several of them capsized and the passengers in them drowned. Although the 'Sussex' stayed afloat, about 100 people were killed. Vera and the other injured passengers were taken back to England for treatment.
Vera recovered sufficiently to be able to return to her duties in Royaumont in time for the big push of July 1916 with the Battle of the Somme.
In May 1924, Vera was elected to the Royal Anthropological Institution in London. Under the heading University attended, Vera put "The world!" (sic). She travelled extensively in Japan and the Far East and was a member of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland.
In 1924 Vera was living in Chelsea in London. By 1929 she had moved to Shaftesbury in Dorset and by 1935 she was living in Guildford in Surrey where she died in 1957.
Vera was awarded two medals by the French Government for her work during the First World War - the Medailles des Epidemies (Bronze) in 1915 and the Croix de Guerre in 1918.
Publications
External Publications
The music of growth, 1933;
The Tressé iron-age megalithic monument, 1935
The dance of çiva : life's unity and rhythm / by Vera Collum.
Art in Greece / by A. de Ridder and W. Deonna. [Translated by V. C. C. Collum]
The earth before history : man's origin and the origin of life / [tr. by P. Radin and V.C.C. Collum]
Manifold unity : the ancient world's perception of the divine pattern of harmony and compassion / by Collum.
House Publications
Related Material Details
RAI Material
census
Other Material
British Library: 1921-57 corresp. with Society of Authors