Staff Nurse Annie EganPrint Page

The plaque commemorates Staff Nurse Annie Egan who died in December 1918 at the North Head Quarantine Station in Manly, New South Wales after contracting Spanish Influenza.

Annie Egan arrived at the North Head Quarantine Station on 21 November 1918 and  began nursing soldiers from the ‘Medic’. The Australian transport ship had departed Sydney for the Eastern Front on 2 November but was recalled before completing its journey when the armistice was signed on 11 November. While endeavouring to reach Europe via the Pacific Ocean, the Medic had stopped to refuel at Wellington on 7 November. At the time, New Zealand’s capital was grappling with pneumonic influenza (Spanish Flu) outbreak.

By the time the Medic arrived back in Sydney on 21 November, more than 200 passengers including Australian soldiers, Italian reservists and crew were suffering from the Spanish Flu. Within a day or two, Annie herself had contracted the illness. She continued caring for patients but collapsed a few days later and was admitted to the Quarantine Hospital on 26 November 1918.

Annie died on 3 December 1918, aged 27 years. She was buried the next day with full military honours at North Head’s Third Quarantine Cemetery. Between 6 and 8 December, requiem masses were held for her at St Mary’s Cathedral and St Vincent’s Hospital and also at St Joseph’s in Gunnedah.

Nurse Annie Egan, who died in Quarantine on Tuesday, was 27 years of age. She was a daughter of William Egan, of Rosewood, Gunnedah, and commenced her training at St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in May, 1915, passing the Australasian Trained Nurses' Association Examination in June, 1918. Miss Egan was a member of the Military Nursing Staff, and generously volunteered to do nursing at the Quarantine Station. She fell victim to the fatal influenza, and was admitted to Quarantine Hospital on November 26. Since then she frequently petitioned for the attendance of a priest. She was a devout, practical Catholic. Realising she was dying, for days and nights she did not cease to implore the rites of the Church. Whilst the authorities blundered, blustered and bluffed, this girl,who, for conscience sake,was offering her young life to help to secure health to the community and to her fellow-citizens, was callously permitted to pass hence without the consolations of religion and the rites of her Church. She died on Tuesday, and was buried on Wednesday of this week.
A Requiem Mass at St. Vincent's.
The death of Miss Egan in the quarantine area, under such heartless and cruel circumstances, has made a very deep impression on the doctors, Sisters, and the whole nursing staff of St. Vincent's Hospital. There is the expression of very widespread indignation, for the deceased nurse was evidently a great favourite at St. Vincent's, and with all with whom she came in contact. By request of her nursing mates, a special Requiem Mass will be celebrated in St. Vincent's Hospital Chapel on Saturday morning, 7th inst., at 9 o'clock, in suffrage of the soul of this devout, self-sacrificing, but spiritually outraged young heroine.— R.I.P.
Catholic Press (Sydney), 5 December 1918.

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