14 WW1 Connections
RSA REVIEW • Autumn 2015
Hilda Steele is the New Zealand nurse featured in the television series, Anzac Girls, shown on Prime TV. She was one of 12 New Zealand nurses chosen to join the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1915. She served until 1919, first helping set up military hospitals in Egypt, and then in France where she followed the Great Advance on the Western Front. BARBARA GALLAGHER, RSA associate member 7904 and Hilda’s eldest grand-daughter, has recorded much of her grandmother’s history, most in Hilda’s own words.
Barbara has vivid memories of Hilda sharing her experiences and recalls how they stayed with her throughout her life. But Hilda’s story did not end with World War 1 – there were many barriers for her to overcome yet she constantly strove to help others and battled with bureaucracy. “She was a woman whose kindness and generosity to the sick and needy knew no boundaries and she was known in the district as ‘Lady Bountiful’,” says Barbara Gallagher in this tribute and account of Hilda Steele’s life.
PHOTOS: Courtesy Barbara Gallagher Collection
`LADY BOUNTIFUL’: THE REMARKABLE NURSE
‘The Chosen Twelve’: The 12 New Zealand nurses before their departure from New Zealand for Australia.
Hilda Mary Mulcock (nee Steele) was destined to have an exceptional life, given the fascinating background she was born into. The fifth of nine children, she was born on May 28,1887 at Wairoa to Thomas James and Malvina Florence (nee Llewelyn) Steele at Cricklewood, her father’s Hawke’s Bay sheep station. Her father was a lawyer from London and her mother had been born in India, but raised in Australia. The family moved to Devonport and later Remuera, Auckland She had begun her nursing training at Auckland Hospital in 1909, qualified in January 1913, and began private nursing at Mt Pleasant Hospital in Wakefield St, Auckland. In 1914 she volunteered and joined the New Zealand Army Nursing Services. She obtained a temporary appointment as charge nurse at New Plymouth Hospital and was invited to accompany the medical superintendent
(Dr Cole) to England to care for his sick child en route. They had just reached Sydney when war broke out and they returned to New Plymouth. Five of the nine Steele children went to World War 1, with Hilda the second to enlist. In March 1915 a call was put out by Hester McLean, who was acting under orders of the New Zealand government to arrange for the loan of 12 nurses to the Australian government. They were to join the Australian Army Nurses and be the first to sail to Egypt to set up military hospitals, readying for the onslaught of wounded soldiers from Gallipoli. Over time these New Zealand nurses have been referred to as “The Chosen Twelve”, or, as Hilda’s daughter, Berys, would say, ‘The Forgotten Twelve’. Berys tried valiantly over her lifetime to gain recognition for these women, but it was not to be. Their names have since become part of New Zealand history.
On April 1, 1915, these nurses sailed to Sydney on the Ulimaroa. Following two weeks of intense preparations, the young women sailed for the Suez Canal on April 15, 1915 on the troop ship, Kyarra. They disembarked at Alexandria on May 28 and travelled to Cairo by train that day (also Hilda’s 27th birthday). She and the other 11 nurses were the first New Zealanders to arrive in Egypt. They were posted to Pont de Kubeh Hospital. Hilda and two other New Zealanders, Sisters Winifred Scott and Elsie Cooke (all Auckland-trained), subsequently volunteered to open an Infectious Hospital and live apart from the other nurses. They began at Sultan’s Casino overlooking the Heliopolis Sporting Pavilion; when this soon became too small, they relocated and became the original sisters to open the large Infectious Military Hospital at Choubra on the outskirts of Cairo.
Hilda remained here until March 1916 when she embarked for France from Alexandria. The sailing was fraught with danger. In a letter, she writes of how they were not allowed to move around the ship without their lifebelts, and describes how on one pitch-black night in midocean, a ship quite near to them was torpedoed. She saw duty at Rouen where she was advised before her posting, the worst casualties were sent. The conditions were extremely difficult and the winters were challenging. As well as wearing as many clothes as possible, Hilda carried a hot water bottle on her rounds. She later became very ill, suffering from the effects of the gas gangrene cases she had treated. She was sent to England to recover, but the effects were long-lasting as she had been stricken by pyorrhoea of the gums. It was to be three years before treatment was available after the war. Her illness was directly traceable to her