Few characters caused as much controversy as Ettie Rout. In pubs and teashops, schools and churches, the mere mention of her name could cause a fierce argument. To some, she was a wicked woman, her ideas as confronting as her appearance; to others she was a guardian angel, the saviour of the Anzacs.

A guardian angel of the Anzacs: This is how Dr Jean Tissot, a French venereal disease doctor, described Ettie. Here she sits with some of the New Zealand, South African and Australian soldiers she looked out for in Paris, 1918. H03654 courtesy Australian War Memorial.

Ettie was born in Launceston, Tasmania and as a girl moved to Wellington, New Zealand with her family. Always exceptional, this young woman shunned convention and often stood out from the crowd. Her tall, fit figure was known for sporting short skirts, men’s boots, even trousers. Miss Rout was many things: an enthusiastic cyclist, skilled typist, bold journalist, committed socialist and a radical thinker. But it was her ideas on sex reform that caused a storm of controversy on both sides of the Tasman.

After the Landing at Gallipoli, Ettie established the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood, organising a small contingent of her fellow countrywomen to travel to Egypt and care for their Anzac men. At first, the work of the Sisterhood seemed unexceptional. Like most patriotic leagues, Ettie’s association arranged outings for the men, organised social events and distributed comforts. But in Cairo, Ettie confronted what her contemporaries called the ‘social evil’. Australian and New Zealand troops frequented bars and brothels, many visited prostitutes in the notorious Wasser district, and a large number contracted venereal diseases. By 1915, alarmed officials noted that Anzac forces had a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases than any other fighting force in the British Empire. But their policy was one of pious denial – the authorities did little to address the problem.

Ettie was bewildered and outraged by the official reaction to VD. The blurring of the medical and the moral incensed her. To her mind, this was a health issue first and foremost, not a question of virtue or vice. Ever the realist, Ettie knew that abstinence was an impractical strategy. So with advice from medical professionals and the soldiers themselves, she put together a prophylactic kit. It contained calomel ointment, Condy’s Crystals (potassium permanganate) and condoms, and was distributed to troops on leave. The authorities turned a blind eye. Mindful of public opinion back home, the Army could not be seen to condone ‘immorality’.

But whilst Ettie’s kits were not officially sanctioned, the generals knew all too well their value. Keeping fit men in the line was their first concern and in the land of ‘sun, sex and syphilis’, sexually transmitted diseases posed almost as great a threat as Ottoman artillery. In 1917, the New Zealand Government would quietly ‘adopt’ Ettie’s kit, albeit without any kind of acknowledgement.

After Egypt, Ettie spent most of the war years in London and Paris. Anzac troops visited both places on leave; their three-day binges in the Folies Bergère and the red light districts a desperate attempt to forget the horrors of the trenches. In Paris, Ettie set up a sexual welfare service. Waiting on the platform at the Gare du Nord, she would greet men arriving in the City of Love, knowing full well what they were after. Some troops were equipped with Ettie’s kit and left to their own devices. But most were directed to one of the ‘clean’ brothels Ettie had identified, where regular medical checks of the women and visual inspection of their clients helped stem the spread of infection.

The City of Love: The sylish dress of Parisian women (and their sexual sophistication) took many young diggers by surprise. The Prodigal Sun: Homeward Ho! on H.M.A.T ‘Mahia’ in Chronicle and Caricature.

It was never easy work. In light of what they’d been through, few soldiers feared ‘the clap’. Some even sought infection – a self-inflicted wound that might spare them from the trenches. And Ettie knew her strategies would only work if both parties – men and women – adopted preventative measures. In hurried encounters in the alleys of London, safe sex wasn’t always an option.

It wasn’t just the sexual health of soldiers or sex workers that concerned Ettie Rout. She feared as much for the safety of the women back home. The long-term consequences of venereal disease – sterility, insanity and death – were ghastly, and before the discovery of penicillin there was no safe or lasting cure. In the early twentieth century, gonorrhoea and syphilis marred lives, broke marriages and destroyed the healthy, companionate home life idealised by feminist campaigners. Ettie was determined to protect her sex from what many called ‘the red plague’. She was fighting for those ‘weeping women who have done no wrong: the cry of innocent babes too young to know how they suffer – and why.’1

In such a campaign, she observed, ‘the Good Women do more damage than the Bad Women’.2 Holier-than-thou puritans who denied the extent of the problem or refused to take effective measures only aided the spread of disease. At the heart of this lay a feminist commitment to women’s personal agency. We must not allow ourselves to become the victims of men’s carelessness, selfishness and lust, Ettie Rout told her fellow campaigners, our bodies are ours and ours alone.

The Good Women do more damage than the Bad Women: Ettie believed that fretful puritans were more culpable on the issue of VD than the supposedly immoral men and women. This is a card that Ettie distributed to the troops on their arrival in Paris. Madame Yvonne’s was a regularly inspected brothel that adhered to Ettie’s sexual health protocols. 3 DRL 6487 (55) courtesy Australian War Memorial.

Thousands of lives were saved by the work of sex reformers like Ettie. Her enlightened approach to sexual health education anticipated later approaches to epidemics like AIDS. In France, her work was venerated – she was praised by politicians, celebrated by the media and awarded the Médaille de la Reconnaissance Française. But at home she met with a frosty reception. New Zealand authorities campaigned actively against her and imposed a hundred pound fine for the mere mention of her name. In Australia, certain organisations fought to bar her entry into the country, fearful of the influence this ‘sexual pervert’ and her ‘pernicious doctrine’ would have. 3

Ettie Rout died in 1936 from a quinine overdose. Maligned and misunderstood, she wrote to her friend H.G. Wells, ‘It’s a mixed blessing to be born too soon.’

It’s a mixed blessing to be born too soon: Ettie wrote this line to her friend H.G. Wells in 1922 – she always recognised the challenges she faced with her progressive ideas. Here, she introduces her advice on sexual health practices to Anzac troops and French women. Ettie Rout, Two Years in Paris (London: E Hornibrook, 1923).

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING: This story draws on Ettie Rout’s written work, Two Years in Paris (London: E Hornibrook, 1923); Ettie Rout - Question of admission to Australia NAA: A1, 1920/3508; Jane Tolerton, Ettie: A life of Ettie Rout (Auckland: Penguin, 1992); Judith Binney, Judith Bassett, Erik Olssen, The People and the Land = Te Tangata me Te Whenua: An Illustrated History of New Zealand 1820–1920 (Wellington: Allen & Unwin, 1990). For further reading about the issue of venereal disease in the Australian and New Zealand forces see Raden Dunbar, The Secrets of the Anzacs: The Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914–1919 (Brunswick: Scribe Publications, 2014).

1 Ettie Rout, Two Years in Paris (London: E Hornibrook, 1923), p. 49.

2 Letters from Women’s Reform League, 2 February 1919 and YMCA Wellington, 24 December 1919, NAA: A1, 1920/3508 Ettie Rout – Question of admission to Australia.

3 Ettie Rout, Two Years in Paris, p. 11.