NURSES' TRIBUTE

Otago Witness, Issue 3419, 26 September 1919, Page 8

NURSES' TRIBUTE

A MEMORIAL TO NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS. Colonel R. Heaton Rhodes. New Zealand Red Cross Commissioner, London, has forwarded the following letter, written by the matron of the King George Hospital, London, to the hon. secretary of the New Zealand branch of the British Red Cross: "As the hospital is now closing and a good many men from New Zealand have been patients here, and there have been deaths among them, I thought you might be interested to know that the nursing staff has erected a memorial to the patients who have died' in this hospital, in the churchyard of St. John's Church, in Waterloo road. The memorial is not quite completed, and owing to the immediate closure of the hospital, I regret that we shall not see it with tho permanent figure, but I am writing to you hoping that you will bo able to insert a notice and possibly an illustration of the memorial in some of the Now Zealand • papers, in order that the relatives and friends of those who have died her© may know that the memorial has been erected. It takes the form of a stone base with a large upright crucifix; tho inscription on the stone "base states that it is was 'Erected by tho Nursing Staff of the King George Hospital, his Majesty's Stationary Office, which was used as a military hospital during the war,' in honour of the patients who died there. Tlie texts, 'Grant unto them, O Lord, eternal rest and let light perpetual shino upon them,' and 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,' are carved at the foot of the crucifix.

"ibis memorial, though not completed, was unveiled by her Majesty Queen Alexandra in December, 1917. What I would

wish specially to inform the relatives and friends of all overseas men. is the fact that amongst the church records at St. John's Church, Waterloo road, is a parchment rolj containing the names, regiments, and dates of the men who have died in this hospital. This parchment roll is signed by her Majesty Queen Alexandra, and is to remain at St. John's Church for reference by anyone who wishes to verify or see the record of death. "Owing to the war and the scarcity of copper, it has been impossible to obtain till now the metal required for the permanent figure. I had hoped that this would have been erected before the hospital closed and was waiting till that was done to ask you what I am now doing—namely, to let it be known that there is such a record of the men who have died in the King George Hospital from May 26, 1915, to June 6, 1919."