This Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service uniform was worn by a senior sister in Lancashire during the First World War. It came from Calderstones Hospital in Whalley which became the Queen Mary's Military Hospital. The nursing service had strict entry criteria which was dropped at the outbreak of war, allowing married and working class women to join.

Calderstones Hospital was originally built as one of Lancashire's county asylums but was handed over to the War Office when it opened in April 1915. The Clitheroe Advertiser described it as the "largest military hospital in the kingdom". It was a vast establishment covering an acre of land which treated up to 500 patients at any one time. The hospital also had a railway line which brought patients to the hospital door. The first ambulance train arrived in Whalley on the 6th May 1915. More than 55,000 injured servicemen were treated at the hospital until it was formally handed back to the County Asylum Committee in 1920.

There remains a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery on the site which remembers the 300 servicemen who died at the hospital during the First World War.