A woman of independent means, she began to train as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse in 1911.
After the outbreak of the First World War, her cousin Albert Kitson, 2nd Baron Airedale offered his home, Gledhow Hall, for use as a VAD hospital.
It opened in 1915 and Cliff was appointed its commandant, that is, officer in charge, a position she held throughout the war.
[2][3] Cliff's scrapbook, The Great European War, Gledhow Hall Hospital, documents life there between 1915 and 1919 in letters, photographs and newscuttings.
[5] In 1935 Edith Cliff married Sir Thomas Willans Nussey,[6] a barrister and Liberal Party Member of Parliament until 1910.