The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Sister Hilda Mary Knox, 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 Richard cruise, the story for this day was on Sister Hilda Mary Knox, Australian Army Nursing Service, First World War.

Sister Hilda Mary Knox, Australian Army Nursing Service
DOD 17 February 1917
Story delivered on 26 March 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sister Hilda Mary Knox.

Born in Benalla, Victoria, in 1883, Hilda Knox was one of ten children born to Isabella and James Knox.

James Know was well known in the community as the secretary of the Benalla Council. Hilda was educated at the Benalla State School, and was considered a “most apt scholar”, distinguishing herself in exams and winning prizes. She was said to have a “beautiful and loving character”, qualities that were well-suited to her chosen profession of nursing.

Knox undertook her nurses’ training at the Homeopathic Hospital in Melbourne. She was still working as a nurse in the city when the First World War began. Wanting to be part of the cause, she enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in November 1914. 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.

Just weeks after enlisting, Knox embarked at Melbourne on the transport ship Kyarra, bound for Egypt. She was posted to No. 1 Australian General Hospital at Heliopolis, where her patients included Australians wounded during the landings on Gallipoli and the subsequent fighting on the Turkish peninsula. She wrote a letter to her mother, dated the 23rd of May and published in the local newspaper in June, in which she praised the Australian soldiers. “I just feel it has been an honour to nurse them,” she wrote. “Their one cry is, ‘Hurry up, Sister, and get me well; I want to get back.’ Several men I liked very much have been killed, and numerous others wounded.”

In March 1916, Sister Knox was posted to nursing duty on board the ship Argyllshire, which was returning to Australia with wounded and invalided men. She was able to return to Benalla, where she was feted for her work and received a civic reception at the Shire Hall. After a period of rest she returned to service in August. She was then directed to the 14th Australian General Hospital in Egypt.

In January 1917, Sister Knox was sent to England for two weeks before she was redeployed in France. She was attached to the 11th British Stationary Hospital in Rouen, but fell ill within days of her arrival. Sister Knox was being transferred to another hospital on 17 February when she died of suspected cerebrospinal meningitis. She was 33 years old.

The Benalla community was shocked and saddened by her death. At a memorial service held in her honour, the preacher read extracts from letters that her parents had received after her death. An officer of the 4th Light Horse, who had been in a ward at the hospital in Egypt, wrote: “We fellows used to lie and watch the door for her to come in and every man of us loved her, and called her ‘Daughter of the Regiment’”.

A few months later, a new memorial pulpit was dedicated to Sister Knox at the Holy Trinity Church in Benalla.

Three of Sister Knox’s brothers served in the First World War. Just a few weeks before Hilda’s death, the body of Private Robert Gordon Knox was found in the River Nile. It is believed that he had been robbed and assaulted before being drowned. He was 23 years old.
Sister Hilda Mary Knox is buried in the St Sever Cemetery in Normandy. Her name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 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 Sister Hilda Knox, who gave her life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Emma Campbell
Researcher, Military History Section