WW1 blast nurse Nellie Spindler gets Wakefield plaque
- Published
Nellie Spindler was buried with full military honours in Belguim
A blue plaque has been unveiled to commemorate a nurse killed during World War One while working at a hospital in Belgium.
Nellie Spindler, from Wakefield, died aged 26 in a blast three miles from the frontline near Ypres in 1917.
She was buried with full military honours and is the only woman buried in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, among 10,000 men.
The civic society's plaque is on the site of her former Stanley Road home.
The plaque was the 47th one installed by Wakefield Civic Society, of which only four commemorate women, said its president Kevin Trickett.
Nellie Spindler was killed in August 1917 when a shell struck a hospital three miles from the front line
Ms Spindler joined the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and was transferred from France to Belgium in July 1917.
Working at No 44 Casualty Clearing Station she helped treat seriously injured soldiers within the range of German shells at the battle of Passchendaele.
Minnie Wood, a matron also from Wakefield, held her as she died and wrote to Ms Spindler's parents telling them their daughter died "perfectly peacefully".
The plaque is close to where Ms Spindler lived in Wakefield
The battle of Passchendaele was fought near Ypres between 31 July and 10 November 1917, in battlefields turned to liquid mud.
A service to remember the nurse was held at the chapel of St James's Hospital in Leeds to mark the centenary of her death.
- Published21 August 2017
- Published30 July 2017
