On the morning of 23 October 1915, in the cold, grey Aegean Sea, the British transport ship Marquette was 5 days into her journey from Alexandria to Salonika (now Thessaloniki) where the British and French had been fighting since September.

On board were New Zealanders of No. 1 Stationary Hospital—36 nurses led by Australian-born Matron Marie Cameron, 8 officers, 9 NCOs, and 77 orderlies. But the New Zealanders, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel DJ McGavin, were a small minority on the large vessel. For the Marquette was not a hospital ship but a troop carrier, transporting the 500 men and officers of the ammunition column of the British 29th Division, plus 500 mules, some horses, and a large number of wagons loaded with ammunition. With the crew included, there were well over 741 people on board.

A number of nurses were enjoying a brisk, warming walk on the deck just after 9 o’clock that morning when their world changed forever. On the upper deck, Jeannie Sinclair saw a green line flashing through the water and her friend Mary Grigor remarked, ‘I wonder if it’s a torpedo.’ It was: the Marquette had been attacked by a German U-boat.

A time of terrible confusion followed. Although the nurses did not panic and followed the drill they had practised, assembling quietly on deck, there were problems with lowering the lifeboats and many of the women were hurled into the sea. Then, as her former passengers and crew struggled to stay afloat or lay dead and dying in the cold water, the Marquette sank, bow first: it took only minutes for what had seemed a mighty ship to disappear beneath the sea.

For the next 7 or 8 hours, before rescue vessels arrived, the men and women from the Marquette clung to rafts and wreckage, encouraging each other, but sometimes slipping away and drowning.

Ten New Zealand nurses lost their lives in the tragedy: Marion Brown, Isabel Clark, Catherine Fox, Mary Gorman, Nona Hildyard, Helena Isdell, Mabel Jamieson, Mary Rae, Lorna Rattray, and Margaret Rogers. The only bodies recovered were those of Rogers, who had been a district nurse with Nurse Maude in Christchurch before joining up, and Isdell, from the little West Coast town of Kumara. Also dead were 22 New Zealand men: 19 members of the NZMC, plus 3 infantry privates attached to the No. 1 Stationary Hospital. In all, 167 of those on the Marquette perished.

The idea for a memorial in the dead nurses’ honour came soon after the tragedy. On 13 December, Lieutenant Colonel Percival Fenwick, the Assistant Director of Medical Services for the Australian and New Zealand Training Depot in Zeitoun, wrote to the chairman of the Christchurch Hospital Board to ask if anything had yet been done ‘to commemorate the bravery of the New Zealand Nurses who were drowned on the transport “Marquette”...In Egypt we are all tremendously proud of the splendid way in which these Nurses died. I feel that it would be only right to perpetuate their memory in our Hospital.’

Fenwick’s suggestion was a brass plaque placed in the hospital hall and ‘a bed in the Women’s Ward...named after each Nurse who came from our hospital’: 3 of the 10 who died—Nona Hildyard, Lorna Rattray, and Margaret Rogers—had belonged to the staff there. He was sure the Medical Corps at the front, and ‘those doing their duty in New Zealand’, would be more than ready to contribute.2

Back in 1914, Christchurch Hospital Matron Mabel Thurston had suggested the need for a chapel in the hospital grounds where nurses and patients could attend services; after the Marquette sinking, she felt such a building could become a memorial to the women who had died. On 4 April 1916, 4 days before she left to take over as matron of the New Zealand military hospital at Walton-on-Thames outside London, she reminded the board of her support for the idea, stressing that such a building was also the hope of all her nurses.3

The January 1916 issue of the nurses’ magazine Kai Tiaki had reported that a decision to ‘erect a chapel at the Christchurch Hospital’ in memory of the nurses lost in the Marquette sinking. A collection had begun on 9 November 1915 at a memorial service held in Christchurch’s St Michael and All Angels at which the bishop, Churchill Julius, spoke of the nurses, ‘who had gone out on active service at the front, with their lives suddenly cut short. They stood as an example to all, as to what our lives should be.’4 More than 200 nurses in uniform were among the many who attended.

Acting Christchurch Hospital matron Rose Muir wrote to the hospital board during 1917, stressing again the urgent need for a chapel. Staff had given more money and donations had been collected, but until the board granted permission to build, there could be no canvassing for public subscriptions or asking for an estimate of the chapel’s cost. The board agreed to bear the cost of the foundations and basement and in September a meeting was held to choose a site for the chapel.

Christchurch district nursing pioneer Sybilla Maude was also behind the chapel idea—and not just for her city. As she wrote to Kai Tiaki on 27 September 1916, ‘What more fitting memorial can be suggested than a chapel attached at each hospital, which could be at the disposal of all denominations, and when peace is declared, we could combine our thank offerings with our memorial.’ She saw ‘a great need’ for hospital chapels, which were a feature of all big English nurse training schools.

‘A nurse’s life is a trying and busy one, and to be able to spend a short time for prayer or silence in a place set apart for that purpose would be very helpful. There are many friends who would be glad to help us in raising funds, and no difficulty should stand in the way of building a lasting memorial to those who have freely given their lives for our country.’

But progress continued to be slow. The Nurses’ Memorial Chapel Committee was not formed until August 1925. The public responded so generously, however, that there was money left over to fund furnishings for the chapel.

The beautiful little building was designed free of charge by architect John Goddard Collins and built by William Williamson. Made of reinforced concrete, Oamaru stone, and terracotta bricks, it has a slate roof. Timber is a feature of the fine, beautifully decorated interior. The arched roof beams and wall panelling are oregon, the window and door frames are matai, the sarking is redwood, and the parquet floor is blackwood and oak. Two local men, Frederick Gurnsey, who taught at the Canterbury College School of Art, and Jake Vivian, carved the elaborate oak reredos and altar rails. Much later, a handsome new porch was added, incorporating bricks and slate from adjacent hospital buildings pulled down in 1991.

Opened on 15 March 1927, the chapel was handed over to the North Canterbury Hospital Board the following year. The foundation stone bears the name of the then Duchess of York, later Her Majesty the Queen Mother, but because she was ill it was actually laid by her husband, the future George VI.

Although there are other memorials to the Marquette nurses, this is the only dedicated chapel of its kind in New Zealand and possibly in the world. As well as commemorating the three Christchurch Marquette nurses, the chapel remembers nurses Grace Beswick and Hilda Hooker, who died after working in Christchurch Hospital during the 1918 influenza epidemic, and many other distinguished medical men and women, such as Nurse Maude, and Canterbury surgeon and Marquette survivor Sir Hugh Acland.

The interdenominational chapel rapidly became an integral part of the hospital’s existence, especially for trainee nurses, who were required to take patients to and from Sunday services, sometimes in beds or wheelchairs, before having the rest of the day off—their only free time during the week. Relatives of the sick were grateful for the solace the chapel offered.

The building’s life has been threatened twice. In the mid-1970s there was talk of demolition when the Hospital Board wished to erect temporary operating theatres on the site; the proposal was withdrawn. Some years later, in the 1980s, the Board decided to pull down the building and make its interior part of a chapel to be included in the new hospital block. There was strong community opposition to this plan, particularly from the newly formed Friends of the Chapel, and in August 1989 the chapel was given an official reprieve when a protection notice was issued.

The Canterbury Area Health Board agreed to lease the chapel and its land to the Christchurch City Council. The site is now classified as a historic reserve under the Reserves Act and the chapel, subleased to the Nurses’ Memorial Chapel Trust Board, is secure under the protection of an Historic Places Trust heritage order: it has a B classification. The Trust Board administers the building and ensures its preservation, and the Friends of the Nurses’ Chapel care for it lovingly.

The chapel boasts 11 lovely stained windows, 4 of which are by the noted English glass artist Veronica Whall. A more recent and very arresting window, by Stephen Belanger-Taylor, shows nurses in First and Second World War uniform, and features the Marquette and a number of nursing medals. The colourful aisle carpet, entitled ‘The Tree of Life’, was created by Dunedin artist Nicola Jackson.

This beautiful and much-loved building is an integral and unique part of Christchurch’s and New Zealand’s medical history.

Author information: Anna Rogers, Author of While You're Away: New Zealand Nurses at War 1899–1948 (Auckland University Press; 2003), Christchurch