The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) (FANY (PRVC)) is a British independent all-female registered charity formed in 1907 and active in both nursing and intelligence work during the World Wars. Its members wear a military-style uniform, but it is not part of the Regular Army or Army Reserve; members do not train at Sandhurst, nor do they hold a commission. Formation It was formed as the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in 1907 as a first aid link between the field hospitals and the front lines, and was given the 'yeomanry' name as its members were originally mounted on horseback. Unlike nursing organisations, the FANY saw themselves rescuing the wounded and giving first aid, similar to a modern combat medic. Their founder, Sergeant Major, later Captain, Edward Baker, a veteran of the Sudan Campaign and the Second Boer War, felt that a single rider could get to a wounded soldier faster than a horse-drawn ambulance. Each woman was trained not only in first aid but signalling and drilling in cavalry movements. The original uniform was a scarlet tunic with white facings, a navy-blue riding skirt with three rows of white braid at the bottom and a hard-topped scarlet hat with black-leather peak. The uniform gradually became more practical and less flamboyant, including importantly, a divided skirt to allow public riding astride. By 1914 it consisted of a khaki tunic, khaki skirt and a khaki solar topee. Shortly after their arrival in France, at the beginning of the First World War, the topee was discarded in favour of a soft bonnet, the hard topee proving impractical for driving an ambulance with a low canvas roof. Early leaders of the FANY included Grace McDougall and Lilian Franklin, "The Boss". First World War On 27 October 1914, their offer of assistance as paramedics having been refused by the War Office, a party of six FANYs, including Lieutenants Franklin and McDougall, plus three trained nurses and two male orderlies, crossed to Calais. They were shortly followed by a privately funded motor ambulance. The Belgian Army welcomed them with open arms and for the next two years the FANYs drove ambulances, opened a hospital and two convalescent homes and set up a casualty clearing station near the Front. Observing this, British official resistance crumbled, and on 1 January 1916 the FANY became the first women to drive officially for the British Army, with