ORDER OF THE RED CROSS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 4349, 21 April 1884, Page 2

ORDER OF THE RED CROSS.

Decoration of Miss Crisp.

The investiture of Miss Crisp, lady suporiiitendent of the Auckland Hospital, with the Royal Red Cross, took place at Government House on Saturday afternoon. Fully six or seven hundred ladies and gentlemen who had been received by Lady Jervois during the "at home" earlier in the afternoon assembled in the ball room to witness the ceremony. Shortly after 4.30 p.m. Lady Jervois entered the room in company with Miss Jervois and Miss Crisp, and His Excellency the Governor and staff followed them immediately afterwards. On the dais, when the ceremony commenced, were Hon. F. Whitaker, His Worship the Mayor and Mrs Waddel, Mrs Crisp, Messra J. M Clark, Thos. Peacock, M.H.R., E. A. Maekechnie, S. Dando, Col. Haultain, Dr. Campbell, Bishop Luck, Monsignor Fynes, Captain Daveney, Dr. Haines.

His Excellency said: Ladies and Gentlemen,—l do not think there could be any more fitting occasion for the duty winch devolves upon me this afternoon than that of our first gathering at Government House during our annual visit to Auckland, and I am glad to see so many of our friends presont. But I know that to the interest of the ceremony which I am about to perform must be due the large number of ladies and gentlemen I see before me and around me. 1 havo especial pleasure—it affords me, indeed, unusual gratification—that it falls to my lot to take part in the ceremony of investing Miss Crisp with the decoration which she has so nobly earned. Miss Crisp's name is well known to you all as the superintendent of the nurses of the Auckland Hospital, also as one who has been engaged actively in hospital management in the ■ mother country, who has been engaged in active service during war, in two campaigns, and who on all occasions, and throughout her career in the public service, has given the utmost satisfaction, not only to those above her, but to the patients whom she has tended, and with whom she lias ever had that sympathy which is almost more to them than the actual nursing of their maladies or their wounds. Miss Crisp, as you all, I believe, know—for it has appeared in the public papers—began her hospital nursing career in the year 1873 at Birmingham. She was afterwards employed in the United Hospital at Bath, an institution I know very well as one of the finest hospitals of its day • then she entered the public service, and went to the hospital at Netley, a grand establishment on Southampton Water devoted to tho sick of tho military service. After being there some two years she went to the Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. During that time she was selected as one of the nurses to tend the sick and wounded in the war in Zululand, and acquitted herself there in a manner which gained the praise of all concerned, from the Queen downwards. She then returned to her former duties at the Herbert Hospital, but had not been there long before she was again selected to nurse the sick and wounded in the Egyptian campaign, and was there several months. Now, just imagine the difference to the patient in a military hospital being attended by such nurses as Miss Crisp, and being waited on, as formerly, merely by soldiers told off for the duty, and you will understand the difference in the state and condition of military hospitals before and after the present system of nursing was instituted. I well know the history ot the introduction of female nurses into military hospitals, for it was during the time I was in the War Office that the system was carried out. First, Florence Nightingale, whose name you all well know, was employed in the military hospital at Scutari, and from that time the practice of employing female nurses in military hospitals has gradually gone on gaining ground. Not long after the Crimean .War, when Netley Hospital was built, there was on organisation of female nurses under Miss Shaw Stewart, a well known lady, the sister of a Scottish baronet, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, and she undertook the management of the nurses at Netley Hospital. At that time there was no special education given to the nurses in military hospitals, but gradually it waß found desirable to organise what I may call a corps of trained female nurses, and these are now employed in the Victoria Hospital of Netley, and the Herbert Hospital, Woolwich, and also in tending the sick and wounded in military campaigns. Now imagine a woman—a young woman, too — imagine her at Ismailia, where the dust and flies abounded in a manner that you in New Zealand have no idea of; where there were none of the comforts of life; where she had to lie down on straw in a shed, just like any private soldier. When you think of her there in that position; hundreds of wounded coming in after a battle-r-eome with shattered limbs, and others bleeding with horrible gashes ; when you think that no less than some 400 of these wounded were brought into this hospital at Ismalia, I think you must admit that it is to no common person that the duty of nursing them could be entrusted. (Cheers.) Why, even the sight of one of these wounds would be sufficient to make most people shudder, and what must be the courage, what must be the devotion of a young woman who is able to nerve herself to the work of tending the sick and wounded under such circumstances? I think you will agree with me that Her Majesty has done well in instituting the Order of the Bed Cross, whereby those who perform such gallant service to their country may be decorated ; and I think you will also agree with me that Her Majesty did well in inviting to Windsor the ladies who had thus shown their devotion, and there herself, with her own hand, pinning the decorations upon their breaste ; and I can only regret that Miss Crisp, who was one of those who, had she been in England, would have gone down to Windsor and there had this decoration presented to her by Her Majesty, will only have it pinned to her breast by Her Majesty's representative. (Cheers). I wish that her Majesty could have herself conferred this honour upon her. From all her career, from all you have heard, and, I venture to say, from all you will hear of her, I think the public of Auckland, and the people of New Zealand, are to bo congratulated that they have amongst them one like Miss Crisp as superintendent of nurses of one of their hospitals. (Cheers.) She is capable of larger things, but still she does her duty there in a manner which gives satisfaction to all, as she has on all occasions previously, whatever may have been the degroe or nature of the duty with which she has boon entrusted. Ido not know, ladies and gentlemen, that I need say more, but I mupt add that I heartily wish Miss Crisp success in her career, and I now have the greatest pleasure in pinning the Red Cross upon her breast. (Load cheers.) The cross was then placed on Miss Crisp's breast above the medals which she already wears. lady and Miss Jervois congratulated the recipient of the honour, while His Excellency returned thanks on her behalf. The gubernatorial party having withdrawn, the assemblage dispersed.