HOSPITAL FOR OVERSEAS STUDENTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20380, 11 April 1928, Page 10

HOSPITAL FOR OVERSEAS STUDENTS.

LADY FRANCES RYDER’S WORK. VISIT FROM THE PRINCE OP . WALES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 17. Lady Frances Ryder, C.B.E. (daughter of the Earl and Countess of Harrowby), who will be well remembered in London for the hospitality which she and her mother organised for soldiers on leave in this country during the war, is still at the head of a voluntary organisation which is proving of great value to students and other young people from the dominions when they are living in London. In a letter to the High Commissioner for Now Zealand, Lady Frances Ryder states that it has been a real pleasure both to herself and her helpers, and also to the various hostesses in London and ii the country, to welcome New Zealand cadets and students who come to England. Nearly 300 calls were paid by New Zealanders to her rooms in Trafalgar square, and over 100 country visits were arranged during the past twelve months. “ I keep ‘ open house ’ for them all the week at my rooms,” she writes, “ and 1 am always so pleased when all these young students from the dominions, men and girls drop in for a chat or for lea, or to bring their friends, or come to be fixed up for various entertainments in London. “In December the Prince of Wales came to tea with me at my rooms to meet fifty of these students. The first one to greet him was a young New Zealander from Gisborne, who has been to stay nine times with different hostesses of mine. I would just like to add that this schcmi is not embodied in any organisation at all, nor do I belong to any committee, because I find a good number of these young students are rather shy of going to any organisation ‘to ask for hospitality,’ and as each one has to be introduced to me by some official or student 1 k.uow already, it puts it on a much more personal and friendly basis.”