The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Staff Nurse Lily Nugent, Australian Army Nursing Service, First World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Joanne Smedley, the story for this day was on Staff Nurse Lily Nugent, Australian Army Nursing Service, First World War.

Staff Nurse Lily Nugent, Australian Army Nursing Service
Date of death: 21 February 1918

Story delivered 22 July 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Staff Nurse Lily Nugent.

Lily Elizabeth Nugent was born in 1881 in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, to William and Honora Nugent. Her father was a farmer and a long-time resident of the area, having settled in 1846, three years before Wagga Wagga was proclaimed a town.

Nugent undertook her nurses’ training at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. She later held the position of head nurse at the Cooma District Hospital. After war was declared, she enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force’s Australian Army Nursing Service.

More than 3,000 Australian civilian nurses volunteered for active service during the First World War. They were posted to Britain, France, Belgium, the Mediterranean, India, and the Middle East, where they worked in hospitals, on hospital ships and trains, or in casualty clearing stations closer to the front line.

Nugent, however, was not sent abroad. She was attached to the Camp Clearing Hospital at Enoggera in Brisbane, where she nursed men who had returned home wounded or with ongoing illness.
During the course of her work, Nugent became ill with tuberculosis and was granted sick leave to Sydney. While there her condition worsened, and she was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital, where she died on 21 February 1918.

Staff Nurse Nugent was buried at Rookwood Cemetery with full military honours. According to newspaper reports, she was the first woman to be accorded a military funeral in New South Wales.
Her name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Staff Nurse Lily
Nugent, who gave her life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Emma Campbell Researcher, Military History Section