Ettie Rout

Ettie Annie Rout
Ettie Annie Rout from the frontispiece of Safe Marriage: A Return to Sanity
Born	24 February 1877 Launceston, Tasmania
Died	17 September 1936(1936-09-17) (aged 59) Rarotonga, Cook Islands
Other names	Ettie Hornibrook
Known for	preventing sexually transmitted disease amongst soldiers

Ettie Annie Rout (24 February 1877 – 17 September 1936) was a Tasmanian-born New Zealander whose work among servicemen in Paris and the Somme during World War I made her a war hero among the French, yet through the same events she became persona non grata in New Zealand. She married Fred Hornibrook on 3 May 1920, after which she was Ettie Hornibrook. They had no children and later separated, and she died, and is buried in the Cook Islands.

Born in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, she was raised in Wellington, New Zealand from 1884. After leaving school, she became a shorthand typist for commissions of inquiry and the then Supreme Court (now the High Court, and not to be confused with the present Supreme Court). Biographers believe this job gave her a wide range of experiences on social issues. She was later a reporter, businessperson, and writer, but most importantly, she was a campaigner on sexually transmitted infections.

Ettie Rout's experiences founding a volunteer nursing group during World War I, the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood, made her aware of the prevalence of STI among servicemen. By 1917, the New Zealand Army had made free distribution of her safe sex kit compulsory. It was for work in Paris, inspecting brothels and recommending them to arriving servicemen, and in the Somme, that she was decorated by the French. In 1917 she and several other New Zealand nurses were Mentioned in Despatches by General Sir Archibald Murray