THE KING'S HOUSE

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160733, 20 August 1920, Page 11

THE KING'S HOUSE

LIVING MEMORIAL TO THE DEAD. LONDON, July 28. The Daily Express is able to give details of the most ambitions and practical scheme yet launched to perpetuate the memory of the glorious dead. It will take the form of a palace of help for the living. The scheme owes its inception to a body known as the Imperial Lady 'Workers, a body of earnest women who have resolved that “these brave dead shall not have died in vain,” and have realised, in woman’s practical way, that the best form of memorial is to hold out the hand to their comrades who returned from fighting the battle of liberty to find another, scarcely less terrible, awaiting them, the battle of beginning again. A magnificent building built for a Government department, within a stonethrow of the House of Commons, will bo the headquarters of the new memorial. It is to be known as the King’s House. It will not be the King’s House in name only, for the King is to be its active and responsible head. He will actually direct the fortunes of this great enterprise. The King’s House will he the haven of any man who has given service to the Empire. It will be a vast bureau where he will be able to obtain advice and assistance on'any matter —financial, vocational, health, and any of the hundred-and-onc difficulties that beset the exservicc man.

The King's House will he run on a purely business basis, and the King will be assisted by n council. There will bo insurance and assurance. departments and a deposit bank. It is not intended to make it a “charitable” institution. Charitv, in the commonly accepted sense, wnl be a forbidden word. The idea is to assist those who are unforunatel •• l.endiceppcd by lack of education or force o: circumstances, and to whom expert advice will be of inestimable value.

A romantic stow is attached to the founding of the King’s House. It waft originally to be the gift of one man as a tliaiik-oll'eriag that his only son had come unscathed through the great war. The sou ou his way home contracted pneumonia aud died. This tragedy came as such a severe blow to the father that the legal formalities connected with the sift were never completed. = Fortunately, there were other publicspirited people ready to step into tho breach, and the necessary funds were contributed.

The Imperial Lady Workers, who arc entertaining at the ‘Albert Hall to-day 10,000 mothers and fathers who _ have lost an only son or several sons in the war, are devoting tho proceeds or donations to the Xing s House —the greatest war memorial of our time.