AustLit

'A beautiful hardcover book with a dust jacket and 66 images.

'Vera Deakin, daughter of Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, was motivated by imperial fervour during World War I to sidestep the Australian government’s restrictions on women’s service. On the eve of WWI she was studying music in Budapest but later joined the fledgling Australian Red Cross and sailed to Cairo. There she became founding secretary of the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau, an organisation devoted to finding information on behalf of the relatives of Australian soldiers who had gone missing or been wounded or killed during the war, then focused at Gallipoli.

'She was 23 and formidable. A self-styled despot, she welded a disparate group of women into a committed team. Scientist Sir David Rivett said Vera brought ‘an infinity of consolation to so many people’. In 1916 she moved the bureau to London. In 1918, at just 26, she was awarded an OBE for her service to the bureau. She led similar work for the Red Cross in Melbourne during World War II.

'In 1920 after a whirlwind romance, Vera married Captain Thomas White, an Australian pilot who had served in the Mesopotamian campaign before being captured by the Turks. She undertook varied welfare work together with lifelong service to the Red Cross.

'Vera was honoured during her lifetime but later largely forgotten. The centenary of World War l revived interest in her and the Enquiry Bureau’s 32,000 case files on missing soldiers. Now Carole Woods has captured this significant figure in Australian history through her perceptive and poignant biography. Carole explores Vera’s humanitarian activism within the defining events of the 20th century and shines a light on a woman who defied society’s expectations in order to help those in need.' (Publication summary)