A WAR FIGURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 10

A WAR FIGURE

MRS. DARCY HILDYARD

NEW ZEALANDERS PRAISED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) ■ AUCKLAND, This Day. Known to thousands of Dominion troops through her untiring efforts and generosity, maintaining at her own expense a doss-house and a rest home for soldiers at Boulogne during the war, Mrs. Darcy Hildyard, who arrived by th& Bangitiki today, is remembered as one of the outstanding English, women workers of the war period.

"Among 275,000 troops who passed through my rest- house during the war the New Zealanders were the best disciplined and the smartest, and, in my opinion, were the cream of the Empire troops," she said. "They were of fine physique and character."

Mrs. Hildyard was the first woman in France to be mentioned in the late Earl Haig's dispatches, and was awarded the 1914 Mons Medal. She handed over a large part of her estate in north Yorkshire to the Government to form the Cattrick' camp, which has since been developed into a permanent training centre for the British Army.