1876 – 1958

Red Cross worker, WW1 fund raiser, Sunday School teacher

Agnes Gruer was born in Buenos Aires, South America, in 1876, a daughter of William Carpenter and his wife Bridget (nee Ward). The family came to Ulladulla when she was two years old. Her siblings were Elizabeth May, Catherine Margaret, John ‘Jack’ James Milne and William. Agnes was crippled by childhood polio and had to be wheeled about in a chair. To travel around the district to do her work, she used a sulky drawn by a quiet pony.

Agnes worked tirelessly throughout the war years and her efforts were recognised. In an article published in the Ulladulla and Milton Times of 28 April 1917 she was acknowledged for her valuable work.

At a meeting held in the Milton School of Arts on 1 May 1917, the Ulladulla Branch of the Red Cross Society was formed with Mrs N Miller elected president, Agnes Gruer as Vice President, joint honorary Secretaries Agnes Gruer and Mr RA Bate. The annual subscription was fixed at 3s. 6d.

At a public meeting at Milton in May 1917, it was decided to launch a Queen Competition in aid of funds for the YMCA Red Triangle Day and hold an athletics day on 25 June, at which the elected Queen would be crowned. This was a state-wide appeal with four candidates to be elected from the MU district. The four candidates were Gladys Cork, Margaret Buchan, Agnes Gruer and Mrs Riley. Gladys Cork was elected Queen of the Day at the Milton School of Arts on 18 June 1917, with Agnes Gruer as her attendant. £590 12s was raised for the cause.

The MU Times noted in 1923:

“In World War 1, no man left Ulladulla for active service without a presentation of knitted beret and socks – the work of Agnes.”

Agnes efforts were rewarded in May 1935 when she was awarded a Red Cross Medal for her work in the district over a period of twenty years, and especially during the war.

Agnes continued her self-sacrificing work until she had to retire due to illness. She died at the Milton and Ulladulla Hospital on 6 August 1958, aged 82 years and is buried beside her parents at Sandridge Cemetery, Mollymook.

Her obituary in the Milton Ulladulla Times 1958 said:

“Miss Gruer could have spent an idle life, and because of her physical disability, no one would have noticed it to be idle. Agnes was basically of the Congregational faith but she was too big a soul for any one church so worked diligently for all, doing with a will what her hands found to do, the inspiration of which drove her on, often against her physical strength. Her shining example of faithfulness silently guided innumerable young people who passed through her hands in Sunday school, which was held at her Ulladulla home.”

Thank you to Robyn Florance for permission to reproduce part of her chapter on Agnes Gruer in ‘Shoalhaven Women Heroines of WW1’