Ellen Campbell was working at Toowoomba Hospital when she enlisted in November 1914 (with her co-worker Annie Heffernan). She arrived in Egypt in January 1915 assigned to No 1 Australian General Hospital at Heliopolis. She then transferred to a Military Hospital in Birmingham before returning to Australia in March 1916 on a troopship of wounded solders from Gallipoli. She returned to England in August and completed four more roundtrips to Australia in the next 17 months. Then, after seven months working at the 3rd Australian Army Hospital at Dartford, she returned to Australia for the last time.