VISCOUNTESS EUBANK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 30 September 1936, Page 12

VISCOUNTESS EUBANK.

A PROMINENT VISITOR. ' ST. JOHN AMBULANCE WORK. Viscountess Elihank, wife of Rt. Hon. Viscount Elibank, president of the Congress of the Federated Chambers of Commerce, which will be held at Wellington, shortly, has arrived in New Zealand with her husband. Lady Elibank comes from Walkerburn, Peebleshire, and has recently been created a Dame of Justice and of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. She is also a Justice of the Peace in Peebleshire, and vice-presi-dent of the Royal Empire Society, London. Some of Lady Elibank’s most important work has been done in connection with the St. John Ambulance Association. A great deal of progress had been made by this organisation during the last few years, she said in an interview. The work was still going ahead rapidly and England to-day was equipped from one end to the other on all its main highways with a chain of St. John first-aid posts. These first-aid posts were a comparatively new introduction. Stations were made at intervals along the road generally by establishing a member of the St. John Ambulance in a private household. Alone or with assistants he trained voluntary helpers, members of neighbouring families, in the work of the association, so that an efficient system of firstaid might be at hand in the event of accidents. These first-aid posts were proving not only very popular with the people, but also a very real help to those in need. An increasingly large number of women were becoming interested in the work of the St. John Ambulance Association, said Lady Elibank. Over 78,000 people a year were trained in the work of the order and a large percentage of that number were women. Coming to New Zealand, via Canada, Lady Elibank said, on her arrival, that she had had a most pleasurable and gratifying ceremony to perform shortly after her arrival in Canada by officially opening the first first-aid post to be established by the St. John Ambulance Association in Canada, on the highway between Vancouver and Seattle.