A New Zealand student is desperately searching for help to finish his thesis.

Trevor Landers is studying at Victoria University in Washington and putting together a thesis on the lives of early New Zealand women doctors.

But one of the medics - who has strong links with Colchester - is proving particularly elusive.

Trevor contacted the Gazette from the other side of the world in the hope that readers can help him solve the mystery.

Dr Grace Eleanor Soltau worked at the East Anglian Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Stoke-by-Nayland before eventually moving to London where she died in the early 1960s.

Trevor has already found out that Dr Soltau was born in 1878 and that her father helped Dr Barnardo at his Ilford homes before moving to Tasmania.

She qualified at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1902 and soon after served at a hospital in India.

She was sent to work in northern Serbia during the First World War before settling in Stoke-by-Nayland.

Trevor said: "I am seeking information from people in Essex who remember the sanatorium and who may have information about Dr Soltau, who was known as Eleanor.

"I would also like to find out if a book was ever written about the sanatorium, or a history of health services in the area."

He added: "It would be wonderful to hear from one of her patients, or a resident who might have known Dr Soltau."

Clues to the life of Dr Soltau would be the final piece of the puzzle, and help Trevor to finish his complex thesis.

Trevor can be contacted by post to The Sanctum, 53 Barnard Street, Wadestown, Wellington, New Zealand.

He can also be reached by telephoning 00 6449 380790, or on e-mail trevor.landers@xtra.co.nz

Trevor said: "All information, no matter how small of seemingly irrelevant, will be gratefully received."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.