[1] She emigrated to the Colony of South Australia with her four sisters on the ship John Elder after their parents had died.

[1] Bidmead was chosen to lead six nurses after she volunteered to be part of the South Australian government's contribution to the Second Boer War.

They sailed in February 1900 and after they arrived in South Africa they went to work at the 2nd General Hospital near Cape Town.

Bidmead was in England at the time, having sailed to Britain in charge of the wounded aboard the hospital ship Dilwara.

She one of only three Australian nurses to receive the Royal Red Cross in the Second Boer War,[3] and the only one from South Australia.