Further to Michael Galea’s very interesting article entitled ‘WWI newspaper snippets from Malta during 1917’, (The Sunday Times of Malta, January 1), I would like to add some coincidental information in respect of HMHS Goorkha and St Edward’s College.

Goorkha hit a mine off Malta on October 10, 1917. Within 35 minutes the 362 survivors, including patients and medical staff, of which 17 were nursing sisters, were successfully rescued by French warships, without any casualties. Although the practice at the time was for patients disembarking from hospital ships to be taken to a reception centre in Valletta and transported to the various hospitals on the island according to their needs, all patients disembarked from Goorkha were taken directly to Cottonera Hospital, now St Edward’s College.

The vessel was assisted into Grand Harbour the following day. It was decommissioned and returned to its owners, Union-Castle Mail Steamship Co Ltd, eight days later, on October 18, for repairs and to resume service with the company. Originally a passenger vessel, it was converted into a 408-bed hospital ship in October 1914 soon after the start of hostilities.

Goorkha was built in 1897, not long after Cottonera Hospital opened its doors to patients in 1873. It was broken up at a Thos W Ward shipbreaking yard in 1928, just one year before Cottonera Hospital, which ceased functioning in 1920 and which admitted Goorkha’s last patients in 1917, was handed over to the Governors of St Edward’s College in May 1929, for use as an English-speaking college founded by Lady Strickland, Countess Della Catena, wife of Lord Strickland, at the time Prime Minister of Malta.