AMBULANCE BRIGADE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 70, 15 December 1932, Page 4

AMBULANCE BRIGADE

Appointments to the Order

Advice has been received by the Assistant Commissioner for the Wellington district of the St. John Ambulance Brigade that his Royal Highness the Grand Prior has approved of the award of the service medal to Lady Ambulance Officer B. Phillips, of the Wellington Suburban Nursing Division. The service medal of the Order of St. John is granted by the Grand Prior and Chap-ter-General of the Order, on the authority of the Sovereign (King George V), to members of the brigade overseas who complete twelve years’ efficient service.

The following appointments of officers in the Wellington district have been approved by the Chief Commissioner for New Zealand:—District staff: Miss Margaret 11. McKnight, to be lady district officer. Wellington Nursing Division: Mrs. Rosalie G, Wilson, to be lady divisional superintendent. Wellington Suburban No. 2 Cadet Nursing Division: Mrs. A. A. Ramsay, to be vice-president; Dr. Sydney It. Cattail, M. 8., Cb.B., to be divisional surgeon; Miss Vera E. Osborn, to be cadet superintendent. Miramar Cadet Nursing Division: Mrs. .Emily L. Poad, to be cadet superintendent. St. Paul's Cadet Nursing Division: Dr. Oliver L. Young, M. 8., Ch.B., F.R.S.C.E., to be divisional surgeon; Mrs. Florence A. Cook, to be cadet superintendent. The Chief Commissioner has also approved of the registration of the Wellington Suburban No. 2 Cadet Nursing Division as a unit of the brigade. At the General Assembly of the Order, which was hold iu London, tlio SubPrior (the Earl of Scarborough) said; “As regards the ancient order from which we have our origin, I suggest that it might be likened in its inception to a first attempt at an unofficial League of Nations with two ideals — ‘Pro Fide’ and ‘Pro Utilitate Hominum.’ Unfortunately, in those early days and in the centuries which followed, ‘Pro Fide’ meant perpetual warfare and political strife, and when in the Napoleonic era, so far as the order was concerned, the warfare and the struggle for temporal power ceased and nothing was left but the hospitaller work, it is rather sad to reflect that its character as an international and sovereign organisation practically suffered extinction.

“Its revival in this country and later on in the British realm, so far as our main activities are concerned, stood for •Pro Utilitate Hominum,’ which takes us back to the earliest ideals of the ancient hospitallers—‘For the good of mankind.’ That 'is what the Grand Priory stands for to-day, and it is on tills basis that we appeal for public support and approval. It is the ideal that we are striving for in these modern days—to reproduce all that is best and most true in Christian chivalry. It is an ideal that even in the confused days in which we live is unassailable and unchangeable, and it is an ideal that appeals alike to our brothers and sisters from overseas, and also to ourselves nt home who uro working under the eight-pointed cross, as they are, in the service of others.”