LATE MRS. ALEX. HAMILTON

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 4, 6 January 1936, Page 13

LATE MRS. ALEX. HAMILTON

The death occurred at her residence, Amritsar Street, Khandallah, on Friday, after a long and painful illness, of Mrs. Alice Maud Hamilton, wife of Mr. Alexander Hamilton, Wellington, manager of the Westport Coal Company. Mrs. Hamilton, who had a distinguished nursing career, was well known in Wadestown and Khandallah for her helpful public activities. Belonging to a prominent Toronto family, the Armstrongs, she- received her nurse's training at St. Luke's Hospital, Chicago, and after graduating became matron of a specialist hospital In Virginia, and subsequently took charge of other institutions. When the Great War broke out she was a medical inspector of schools under the Toronto Education Board, and resigned from that position to undertake voluntary nursing services overseas, proceeding to England under the auspices of the Daughters of the Empire organisation. Attached to the British Red Cross as a voluntary nurse, Mrs. Hamilton rendered valuable service in war hospitals in England and France, including the charge of an officers' hospital at Rouen, where, after the first Somme "push" in 1916 no fewer than 1400 officers were treated.

Arriving in Wellington in February, 1918, after her marriage to Lieutenant Hamilton, of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, she soon found further scope for her nursing and organising talent when the severe influenza epidemic developed in the Dominion. She was then residing in Wadestown, where an active emergency committee was organised, and it was the proud record of the Wadestown Epidemic Committee that only two deaths occurred in the district during that disastrous period. For the last 16 years Mrs. Hamilton resided at Khandallah, and her illness was borne with cheerful fortitude.

The funeral service at the residence yesterday was conducted by the Yen. Archdeacon Cowie, of St. Barnabas's Anglican Church, and was very largely attended. The many beautiful wreaths provided further tribute to a woman whose life had been so largely devoted to public service. The interment was made at Karori Cemetery, where Archdeacon Cowie officiated at the graveside. ■ - ■■-