WOMEN’S WAR MEMORIAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19552, 7 August 1925, Page 13

WOMEN’S WAR MEMORIAL.

UNVEILED BY DUCHESS OF YORK. (Fbom Our Own Cobbespokdent.) LONDON, June 30 The Duchess of York has unveiled the famous Five Sisters Window in York Cathedral in honour of the 1465 women of the Empire who ga-vie their lives in the War. Among the thousands of memorials extolling yie deeds of man in the war, there have been none telling of the sacrifice of woman. With the renovation of the Five Sisters Window—probably the most famous and exquisitely feminine stained glass windov in the world—this reproach disappears. It ib the women's memorial to women, and has been subscribed to by high and low in all parts of the world. The Five Sisters Window, as all cathedral lovers know, is the finest window in York Minster, which is England's treasure house of stained glass. Within the walls are over 100 windows containing stained glass of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Thi9 unmatched wealth was estimated by the Dean of York two years ago to be worth in modern values £73,000,000. During the war a bomb fell near the Minster, and most of the priceless glass was removed and stored. For ton years the five tall slender lights of the Five Sisters have been boarded up. In 1922 a Yom lady, the wife of Colonel Blakeway Little, had. the inspiration .of restoring the window as a memorial to the women who died in the war, and with the moneys collected — donations came from all parts of the world —the priceless glass was cleaned and restored piece by piece. * No one knows who were the Five Sisters of York, but everyone likes to think of them as Diokens wrote in "Nicholas NickeJby"— how these five graceful spinsters of the far-off centuries, preferring their beautiful garden to the cloisters, worked designs on frames of tapestry. Alice, the youngest and the most beautiful of them, died, and the four survivors caused the tapestry pictures to be transferred to the glass of the windows now known as the Five Sisters. "The familiar patterns wore reflected in their original colours," tells the sad-faced traveller in "Nicholas Nickloby," "and, throwing a stream of brilliant light upon the pavement* fell warmly on the name Alice. For many hours in every day the sisters paced slowly up and down the nave, or knelt by the side of the flat broad stone. Only three were seen in the customary places, after many years, then but two, and, for a long time afterwards, but one solitary female, bent with age. At length she came no more, and the stone bore five plain Christian names." The setting of the unveiling and dedication ceremony in the Minster was itself most harmonious and beautiful in form, sound, and colour, and in its religious import. The nave and transepts, mainly the transepts, were used for the congregation and choir. The Duke and Duchess of York, with the Archbishop of York, and the Dean of York, and other clergy, occupied seats on the dais on the chancel steps and in the doorway of the choir screen, and matters wore so arranged that the Duchess of York had not to leave her place to give the signal for the unveiling. v ßefore doing so she said: "As an act of most high praise and glad thanksgiving to Almighty God for the lives and devotion of the 1465 women of the Empire who died for their country in the war, now, in the namo of their sisters in all parte of the world, I unveil and restore to its ancient use the Five Sisters Window." Almost immediately tho curtain shrouding the window fell soundlessly and gracefully away. The perfection of the work done in restoring design and most delicate colouring to the ancient glass cannot be conveyed in words. It was felt to be n thing to giv£ thanks to God for, as was done in the immediately following prayer naming "John Remain and those who laboured with him in this place and enriched his work," whose inspiration and artistic . endowment conceived and constructed "this great window now restored." After the singing of the hymn "For all the Saints who from their labours rest," the Archbishop dedicated the oak screen which has been erected with the surplus of the funds raised for the restoration of the window, and has been placed in the St. Nicholas Chapel to bear the names of the 1465 women whose sacrifice in the war the restoration commemorates. After the blessing by the Archbishop the "Last Post" and the "Reveille" was sounded.