Army nursing service goes to war.

The first contingent of New Zealand Army Nursing Service sisters, with their Matron-in-Chief Hester Maclean (seated centre, left of the captain), en route to the war, on the Rotorua, in May 1915. Hester Maclean I n 1914, Hester Maclean was a highly influential New Zealand nursing leader – assistant inspector general of hospitals, matron-in-chief of a proposed army nursing service, and owner and editor of Kai Tiaki, the national nursing journal. These roles put her in a unique position to chart the progress of New Zealand nursing through World War 1. When news broke in July that Germany had declared war on Russia, Maclean was not afraid to predict what would happen, and to declare her attitude. In a late supplement to the July 1914 issue of Kai Tiaki, she declared: