Ellen Savage, GM (17 October 1912 – 25 April 1985) was an Australian army nurse and hospital matron [1] [2] from Quirindi, New South Wales.

[1][3] She was a founding member of the Australian College of Nursing,[1] and a recipient of the George Medal[2][3] and of a Florence Nightingale memorial scholarship.

[1] Savage signed herself as Ellen in formal letters,[4] and most reporting is by that name, including her official war service record.

[23][24] Media attention to Savage's actions after the Centaur sinking was wide and varied in nature and includes presentation in cartoon comic strip format.

[14][27] Reporting followed her to many places and on many activities, for example nurses outings organised by the Royal Queensland Yacht Club,[28] as a guest speaker,[29] meeting survivors of other war incidents,[30] and presentation to Lady Louis Mountbatten.

[35] She was actively involved in fund-raising that helped to establish Centaur House, Brisbane, an educational and social centre for nurses.

Savage was with the New South Wales Public Health Department from 1937 to 1941, and in 1941 she joined Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS).

She transferred to the Australian Imperial Force on 18 November 1941 and served in the Middle East in the hospital ship Oranje.

[47] Appointed senior sister at (Royal) Newcastle Hospital,[48] she was respected and somewhat feared for her insistence on high standards of discipline and knowledge.

[1] At Newcastle Hospital she was unexpectedly passed over for the post of director of nursing by the medical superintendent, Dr Christian McCaffrey, because she was ‘entrenched in the "old school mode" wanting to maintain subservience and military discipline’.

[1] She was matron of the hospital's chest unit at Rankin Park from 3 April 1951[48] until ill health forced her resignation in 1967, and she continued to live in Gordon, Sydney.

[1] On 12 May 1943 Savage was one of twelve nurses who sailed in the hospital ship Centaur bound for Port Moresby to recover wounded military personnel.

[2] She raised their morale with group prayer and recitation of the rosary, and supervised the rationing of scant water and food supplies.

[2][11][50] For "conspicuous service and high courage" arising from the sinking of the Centaur,[2] in 1944, she became the second Australian woman to be awarded the George Medal.

[1][3][9] The citation for her award read:[51] Although suffering from severe injuries received as a result of the explosion and immersion in the sea, she displayed great heroism during the period while she and some male members of the ship's staff were floating on a raft, to which they clung for about 34 hours before being rescued by a US destroyer.

Her courage and fortitude did much to maintain the morale of her companions.On 7 April 1993 Australia issued a postage stamp in honour of Ellen Savage.