From Maid to Matron: Nursing as a route to social advancement in nineteenth-century England

Women's History Review

Volumn 19, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 125-143

  Hawkins, Sue ^a  

^a KINGSTON UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77952200472     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020903444718     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. For a discussion of the politics of nursing reform see: Anne Marie Rafferty (1996) The Politics of Nursing Knowledge (London: Routledge)
2. Robert Dingwall, Anne Marie Rafferty & Charles Webster (1988) An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing (London: Routledge)
3. Brian Abel-Smith (1960) A History of the Nursing Profession (London: Heinemann). These works focus on the development of hospital nursing, as does this article. Other branches of nursing, such as district nursing, were also emerging during this same period but are outside the scope of this study
4. Abel-Smith, A History of the Nursing Profession; Janet Likeman (2002) Nursing at UCH, 1862-1948 (Ph.D., University College London); Martha Vicinus (1995) Independent Women: work and community in the Victorian age (London: Methuen & Co)
5. Ann Simnet (1986) The Pursuit of Respectability: women and the nursing profession, 1860-1900, in Rosemary White (Ed.) Political Issues in Nursing: past present and future, vol.II (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons)
6. Susan McGann (1992) The Battle of the Nurses: a study of eight women who influenced the development of professional nursing, 1880-1930 (London: Scutari Press)
7. Charles Booth Archive B153. The Charles Booth Archive is located at the Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics. An online catalogue can be consulted at http://www.booth.lse.ac.uk
8. Lawrence Stone (1971) Prosopography, Daedalus, 100, p. 46
9. Record linkage was based on three or more characteristics matching from the following: name, age, date of event/dates of employment, role and ward worked on. There is a body of work on the use of record linkage in historical research; see Christopher French & Peter Tilley (1997) Record Linkage for Nineteenth Century Census Returns: automatic or computer aided? History and Computing, 9(1-3), pp. 122-133
10. Records from different census returns can be linked to the same person if they match on name (or possess predictable variances in spelling), place of birth (within a locality) and date of birth (with a variance of three to five years). Other information which can also confirm a match include: living at the same address, the presence of the same people within the household, or occupation, although this can be less helpful as a result of less rigid occupational structures, especially within the working classes. For a discussion of the challenges of record linkage between census returns see Edward Higgs (2005) Making Sense of the Census Revisited: census records for England and Wales, 1801-1901, a handbook for historical researchers (London: University of London School of Advanced Study Institute for Historical Research and The National Archives of the UK)
11. Walter Armstrong (1972) The Use of Information about Occupation, in Edward Anthony Wrigley (Ed.) 19th Century Society: essays in the use of quantitative methods for the study of social data (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
12. For a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Armstrong's schema and alternatives to it, see Dennis Mills & Kevin Schurer (1996) Employment and Occupations, in Dennis Mills & Kevin Schurer Local Communities in the Victorian Census Enumerator Books (Oxford: Leopard Head), pp. 136-160
13. 'Nurses of Note', The Nursing Record & Hospital World (7 April 1894), p. 229
14. 'The Marriage of the Surgeon', St Pancras and Holborn Times (8 January 1859), p. 2
15. 'Nurses of Note', p. 228
16. J. S. Cockburn, H. P. F. King & K. G. T. McDonnell (Eds) (1969) Victoria County History: a history of the County of Middlesex, vol.1. http://www.british-history.ac.uk (accessed 5 February 2008)
17. T. F. T. Baker, J. S. Cockburn & R .B .Pugh (Eds) (1971) Victoria County History: a history of the County of Middlesex, vol.4. http://www.british-history.ac.uk (accessed 5 February 2008)
18. The Times (2 February 1857), p. 2
19. Quoted from Kathleen Jones (1972) A History of the Mental Health Services (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul)
20. J. Mortimer Granville (1877) Care and Cure of the Insane being the Report of the Lancet Commission on Asylums, 1875-1877 (London: Hardwick and Bogue)
21. The Times (16 December 1858), p. 6
22. St Pancras Workhouse and its Vestry had long been regarded as corrupt and mismanaged, and was severely criticised in the press for its treatment of pauper inmates. The Times (27 February 1856), p. 12
23. At the time of Harriet's arrival this reputation was just beginning to be reversed, and the Directors of the Poor must have been extremely sensitive to any hint of scandal. For further reading on the organisation of local government in London, and St Pancras in particular, see Francis Sheppard (1971) London 1808-1870: the infernal wen (London: Secker & Warburg), pp. 25-45
24. The Hospital (Nursing Mirror Supplement) (7 August 1897), p. 168
25. Death certificate: Lucy Hannah Coster. In the second half of the nineteenth century 1918 children were admitted to the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street with diphtheria and related illnesses, and of those 31% died. Lucy Hannah died quickly at home, but her twin, Helen, was sent to the Hospital for Sick Children later the same year, with diphtheritic paralysis, after six months of illness. After a month in hospital, and spell at a convalescent home in Brighton, she returned home, recovered. Small and Special: the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street Historic Patient Admissions Database: http://www.smallandspecial. org.uk (accessed 6 February 2008)
26. 'Nursing Echoes', The Nursing Times and Hospital World (2 April 1898), pp. 275-276
27. Information on the fate of Charles Coster came from the message boards for Prince Albert Saskatchewan on http://www.rootsweb.com. A posting asking for information about Ernest Coster resulted in receipt of a digital image of the tombstone of Charles Coster, which read 'Charles Henry Coster, born April 25th 1862, died March 16th 1886, son of William Tyeth & Harriet Coster' followed by an inscription, 'Beneath this stone in soft repose, is laid a Mother's dearest pride'. This is, without doubt, Harriet's son
28. Will of Harriet Coster, 28 July 1916. Harriet's will indicated that Ernest was living in Prince Albert, Canada at the time of her death. Canadian census records, searched using Ancestry.com and record linkage techniques already discussed, revealed that he had emigrated to Canada in 1885 or 1886, probably following in his brother's footsteps. The 1901 census for Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, showed Ernest married to a local girl, Mary, with eight children, all grandchildren Harriet would never have known. Canadian Census 1901, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (accessed via http://www.ancestry.com on 30 October 2007)
29. It was not unusual for women, with no previous experience, to be appointed as nurses at this time, especially in the workhouses, where most of the nursing was actually carried out by able-bodied paupers. Even in the major London hospitals, in the 1850s, matrons and superintendents were most often appointed for their housekeeping experience. Gwendoline Ayers (1971) England's First State Hospitals and the Metropolitan Asylums Board (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine)
30. Stephanie Kirby (2002) Reciprocal Rewards: British poor law nursing and the campaign for state registration, International History of Nursing Journal, 7(2), pp. 4-13