Trained Christchurch Hospital 1910.

She was one of the first group of nurses, surgeon and dressers to arrive in Brussels in August 1914 – working for the Belgium Red Cross.

She returned to New Zealand in December 1914 then departed from Wellington on the 8th April 1915 with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, she would go on to serve in Belgium, France and Cairo.

Sister Butler was one of the first New Zealand nurses to serve in the war, and one of only a handful of New Zealanders to receive the 1914 Star.

Listed as 22/7 in Nominal Roll and 22/17 in Military Personnel file.

Staff nurse 8.4.15; Sister 18.2.21

She served in Belgium, France and NZGH, Cairo.

No. 1 New Zealand General Hospital "Brought to the notice of the Secretary of States for War for valuable services at home towards the successful conduct of the war and published in the press by the war office."

Awarded the MBE in 1939. She was recommended for the Royal Red Cross decoration, but it was not awarded.

"Sister Butler's experience is rather more varied. Holiday-making in England when the war broke out, she joined the Red Cross there, and was in Brussels a week before it was taken on 21st August, 1914, by the Germans. At the commencement they were nursing Belgians, and later Germans as well. Three weeks passed and Sister Butler with others commenced her return to England per dray to Ghent on the strength of an American passport. One German officer, who stopped their novel conveyance to examine passports - on this occassion they openly stated they were making for England- suggested that they should wait for three weeks until Germany had taken England , when he would be happy to escort them. The party had other views of the matter, however, and decided not to wait. In December, 1914, Sister Butler returned to New Zealand, but in April of the next year duty again called her, and as one of the first fifty N.Z. nurses supplied to the Imperial Government she returned on the "Rotorua" to England. Later the nurses went out to Egypt and Sister Butler, one of the twenty-five, was sent to Alexandria, the remainder of the party going to Cairo. On the "Willochra's' second return with wounded, Sister Butler again visited N.Z. but went back with her and took up duty in the N.Z. Hospital in Cairo. Now sister Butler is completing the double return once more - to N.Z. in the "Tahiti" from Egypt and this time per the "Maunganui" to -----!

Long live the Nursing Sisters!" Source = The Kitbag ( a magazine published by the men on the troopship Maunganui, which left NZ on 26 June 1916.)



Serial Number is incorrectly recorded as 22/7 on Nominal Roll AWMM