On Saturday [November 9th, 1918] there were laid to rest in the Luton Church Cemetery the mortal remains of Nurse Catherine Clegg. Trained as a hospital nurse in the early years of her life, she has devoted her time and skill to the care of the sick and infirm.

In the year 1906 she came to nurse a daughter of the late Major-General Cherry-Garrard, of Lamer Park, Wheathampstead, and remained in the service of the family until she moved to Round Green almost four years ago to be the housekeeper and companion of Miss Cherry-Garrard, who had come to the parish to help her brother-in-law, the Rev G. H. C. Shorting, Vicar of Stopsley, in church work.

During the past year, owing to the shortage of nurses at the Bute Hospital, Nurse Clegg (pictured right) has frequently devoted a day a week to helping the hospital staff, and in the last week of her life she gave almost every hour of the day to nursing influenza patients in the parish of St Saviours, of which she was a prominent member. People seeing her uniform entreated her to come in and nurse some sick relative, and wherever she was asked she went to comfort and cheer.

But the effort proved too much. Exhausted by constant nursing, she breathed in the poison from the patients she had visited. Meningitis ensued, and in three days she passed to her rest.

Her body was brought to St Saviours Church on Friday afternoon [November 8th]. The service of vigil for the dead was said that evening, and the next morning there was a solemn requiem. The burial service, which was taken by the Rev B. H. Winterbotham (Vicar of St Saviours), assisted by the Rev Shorting, was held on Saturday morning, the concluding part being over the open grave in the Church Cemetery. Members of the Cherry-Garrard family and the matron and nurses from the Bute Hospital were among the mourners at the cemetery.

[Catherine Clegg had died on November 7th, 1918, at the age of 59. She had been born in Clapham, London, and was residing at 422 Hitchin Road, Luton, at the time of her death.]

[The Luton News: Thursday, November 14th, 1918.]