CAPTAIN FABER (Hampshire, Andover)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether Mrs. M. A. Brook, of Pudsey, who has until now received a pension of 7s. a week for nursing services rendered by her in the Crimean "War from the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation, has received notice that she must relinquish that pension on 1st January in favour of an old-age pension, which she has not asked for; and whether she will be paid the difference between the two pensions.
(Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) I am informed that Mrs. Brook, of Pudsey, was not in receipt of a pension from the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation issued to her as hers as a matter 2224 of right, but was granted in 1900 as a charitable allowance as widow of Private John Brook, 7th Fusiliers, who had served through the war with Russia, 1854–6, and who had died on 30th August, 189L Mrs. Brook, as being over seventy rears of age, has been told by the Corporation to apply for an old-age pension, and has, it is understood, been successful in obtaining such pension. I understand that her case will receive further consideration for an allowance in supplement of her old-age pension, and, following the ordinary rule in these cases, such allowance with the old-age pension would equal the allowance hitherto issued by the Corporation, if the circumstances of the widow as they now are should, in the opinion of the Corporation, justify the issue of such supplementary allowance. The matter appears to be one which is within the discretion of the Corporation.