Today the Club recognises the unique contribution in war and peace of Australia’s own Vera Deakin and, through her, the Australian Red Cross. The authoritative Australian Dictionary of Biography credits Vera with “a greater influence than any other single person on the development of the Australian Red Cross”. Vera Deakin was twenty-three when she took ship for Cairo in 1915 to seek work with the Red Cross while Australian soldiers were fighting at Gallipoli. There she became secretary of the
Portrait of Mrs Thomas Walter White OBE (nee Vera Deakin) by Robert Hofmann,1946. Lady White is wearing the uniform of the Victorian Divisional Commandant of the Australian Red Cross (ARC). (Australian War Memorial)
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