A GREAT NURSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21101, 8 February 1932, Page 3

A GREAT NURSE.

To countless thousands of ex-soldiers who served in the European and South African Wars, the death of Miss F.' hel McCaul, founder of the Union Jack Club in Waterloo Road, S.E., will mean a real personal loss, states a writer in a London newspaper. "The second Florence Nightingale," as Miss McCaul was called, devoted the greater part of her life to giving help and comfort to the British soldier. During the Great War she turned her nursing home in Welbeek Street, W., into a hospital, and, at the same time, ran a great .depot for sending comforts to the troops at the front. Her service during the Boer War was with Sir Red vers Buller's force. She was at the battle of Colenso, and was the first woman to enter Ladysmith after its relief, besides being with a field hospital in the hard fighting that followed. After her return home Miss McCaul had the idea of providing in London a club which would be a real home for soldiers and sailors, founded with the aid of subscription from the civilians of the Empire. The Union Jack Club was opened by King Edward in 1907. During the Great War the club proved a haven of rest for thousands of soldiers fresh from the trenches and there was never a bed empty. In addition to her work for British soldiers, Miss McCaul also saw mining service on the Japanese front in Manchuria in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5, Miss McCaul was once thanked personally for her services by King Echvard. That was in 1902, after her Welbec-k Street nursing home had provided all the necessaries for an operatiou that the lung had undergone. "Miss McCaul was a quiet, unassuming woman, to whom work was its own reward," said one of her friends. "She was a great British woman, courageous, selfsacrificing aad devoted to nursing and the welfare of servic® men."