Nurse Cavell.
Circles and Guilds.
SUBURBAN AND CITY BRANCHES OF WORK.
It might be safely said that there is not a street in or around Brisbane, in which there are not women working in one way or another for the men in khaki. Leisure hours are given to sewing, knitting, or arrangements for “days,” fétes and other entertainments whereby money may be gathered in for the welfare of the soldiers in the trenches, in the hospitals, on leave, or discharged from duty.
The working girls, no less than those of the leisure classes, have given of their time and money, and it is no uncommon occurrence for the employees of large drapery and other establishments to arrange concerts, river picnics and entertainments to provide either the furniture for a room in the Residential Club, or some other gift for a patriotic cause.
Apart from the Red Cross Society, the Queensland Soldiers’ Comforts Fund and other well-known patriotic centres, there are many circles and guilds and individual women who work for or entertain the Queensland soldier. Some idea of the work the women are doing is realized when it is considered that, in the Red Cross alone, each of the 31 Brisbane branches averages a membership of from 50 to 100 women. In addition to the Societies formed entirely for patriotic work, there are at least 17 different sewing guilds attached to independent institutions.
Among these centres is the Blind, Deaf and Dumb Institution, the members of which make quantities of shirts and socks, their work being particularly neat and well finished. The students of the Queensland University, the Technical College, and the women of the Mutual Service Club also make garments and knitted articles for the men, while the girls of the Y.W.C.A. have given wonderful contributions considering that the majority of their time is taken up with earning their living. Not only have they become a sub-branch of the Red Cross Society, and donated gifts regularly to the Queensland Soldiers’ Comforts Fund, but they have given of their earnings as well. Each girl gives what she can afford weekly, a penny, threepence, or whatever the sum may be, and during the last year they collected over £60 for various patriotic organisations.
The Church of England Soldiers’ Help Society have been working energetically almost from the commencement of the war. It was the members of this Society who organised and established the Anzac Club in Charlotte-street, and this is by no means the only channel of their work. Twice a week members go out to the camp and mend the soldiers’ clothes. They have a tent, and the Soldiers’ Hut (which is another result of their efforts) where they receive damaged garments and darn, patch and mend them ready for use again. A scheme to relieve the anxiety of relatives of soldiers who are wounded has been of inestimable comfort to many mothers and fathers in Queensland. The Society keep in touch with a chaplain in England, who visits and issues cards to the wounded men in hospitals in England. The men fill the cards in, stating their wounds, their circumstances, name, etc., and these are sent out to Queensland, and they are then distributed to the relatives by the Society. In this way many parents have been able to trace their sons, particularly boys who ran away from home to enlist, and who have failed to keep in touch with their relatives.
Many women’s societies and clubs regularly entertain the men in camp, organizing concerts, while the work of individual women in the interests of soldiers has been beyond praise. Among other centres of patriotic activity, the following churches, institutions and societies also have energetic sewing guilds:—Queensland Women’s Electoral League, Stephens’ Girls’ League, Mitson Haseldene Sewing Circle, Holy Trinity Sewing Circle, Heralds of the King, The Spiritual Soldiers’ Aid, City Tabernacle, St. Peter’s Guild (West End), Salvation Army, Nurses at Central Hospital, Vulture St. Baptist Church, and a 60 Sewing Circle.
