Remembering Miss Hilda Peare …….. a nurse from the Great War …. today at Southern Cemetery

 Miss Hilda Peare has come back out of the shadows.

Hilda Peare, 1917

She was a Red Cross Nurse during the Great War, who died “of a severe attack of Scarlatina, contracted while she was engaged nursing the sick and wounded of the fighting forces”*

She was buried in Southern Cemetery with full military honours, and then quietly slipped into obscurity, until now when her contribution will be remembered at a special commemorative service on September 2nd in the Cemetery.**

And here I have David Rawson to thank for not only alerting me to the service, but doing all the research on Miss Peare.***

According to David, “Some years ago, the manager of the cemetery, Pete, came across a record of Hilda's burial and located the site. 

Given her war role he organised for a small marker memorial to be placed at the grave. Pete described her as a 'trench nurse'.

Last May, the Common War Graves Commission  held a war graves week, and I met Liz Marsland who is the public engagement coordinator for the CWGC in the North West. Pete showed us the grave and as the conversation developed about Hilda, we thought that she deserved a CWGC headstone.

Normally if a casualty has a memorial erected privately the CWGC does not then add one of theirs. So, Liz made the case for Hilda to get a CWGC headstone and they agreed”.

Hilda Peare was born in Ireland in 1894, “attended the French School in Bray, Co. Wicklow. 

This school was for young Protestant ladies from across Ireland. It was a boarding school and so Hilda would have been used to living away from home. We know that she was at this school age 17. Clearly a fairly well off family”.

Seymour Park School, 2022

In the autumn of 1915 she enlisted in the Voluntary Aid Detachments of the Red Cross for service administering to sick and wounded servicemen, and was posted to the 2nd Western General Hospital based at Whitworth Street, and from there was redirected to the Seymour Park Auxiliary Hospital on Northumberland Road in Stretford.

The hospital had been a school which was opened in 1907 and is still there today.

During the course of the war, some schools were requisitioned as hospitals along with other buildings like church halls and private residents which were donated by their owners.

Her death was widely reported in the Irish Press, with The Free Press commentating “that her devotion to duty was fully appreciated was evident from the remarkable demonstration of regret on the occasion of her internment. 

She was buried with full military honours, the gun-carriage and the firing party being supplied by the Commanding Officer of Heaton Park Depot. The sergeants of the local detachment of the Royal Army Medical Corps acted as pall bearers, and the band of St Joseph's School played the Dead March in Saul along the route. 

Beautiful wreaths and floral tributes were sent by the officers and men of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Matron, Sisters, and Nurses of the various military hospitals in the locality, the ladies of the V. A. D., and the patients of the branch hospital where Nurse Peare worked”.

V.A.D., recruitment poster, 1915

And so, it is fitting that a century and a bit after that service she should be remembered in Southern Cemetery.

But that is not quite the end, because David has added  “as knowledge of this event spreads, our friend Cath Brownhill, was telling me that she was a Captain in the Army Reserve based at 207 Field Hospital.

WW1 memorial at the drill Hall, 2022

She has found that Hilda is remembered on the WW1 memorial at the drill Hall on King's Rd (207 HQ)

Cath took the picture. Hilda is toward the top of the left hand column. Although she is down as Pearce rather than Peare".

Original grave marker, 2022 on display

There is much more, and David’s research offers up a wealth of information on the work of the VADS, and Miss Peare’s background, along with fresh avenues of research.

The original grave marker is now on display at his permanent exhibition of memorabilia in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery and will also include other material pertaining to Ms. Pearce

Added to this there is The Red Cross’s own data base of those who served as VADS, which is temporarily down for maintenance.

But for now, that is it.  

The ceremony will be held in Southern Cemetery, on September 2nd at 10.30 for 11am, and The Irish Consul General will be attending to represent the Irish Government.

The new gravestone to Ms. Perare, 2022

Pictures; Miss Hilda Peare, circa 1915-1917, Seymour Park School, 2022,  from the collection of David Rawson, V.A.D., Recruitment poster, 1915, Imperial War Museum and WW1 memorial at the drill Hall on King's Rd (207 HQ), 2022, courtesy of Catherine Brownhill, and the grave marker and new Red Cross Gravestone, 2022,  from David Harrop.

*The Free Press, March 14th, 1917

** The ceremony will be held in Southern Cemetery, on September 2nd at 10.30 for 11am

*** David Rawson, is one of the three Manchester City Councillors for the Chorlton Park Ward.