'Lower than a scullery maid'. Is this view of the British Poor Law nurse justified? Examination of probationer registers from Kensington Infirmary, 1890-1916.
The Sairey Gamp image has been grossly overused in describing the 'un-reformed' 19th-century British nurse/midwife. For Dickens she was a literary device--an exaggerated portrait of the reality, which has often come to represent the true state of British nursing at the time. But were things uniformly bad in nursing? Those who nursed the sick in voluntary hospitals were, undoubtedly, not of the highest class but many, no doubt, gave reasonably good service. In workhouses those entrusted with caring for the sick were often able-bodied paupers, which added an additional disadvantage to the working class status of nurses in general. In this paper I will explore the myth in relation to selected citations from the literature and to data gathered from the probationer registers of Kensington Infirmary (St Mary Abbot's Hospital) in west London.
Lorentzon
Maria
M
University of Surrey, England.
D019022:Almshouses / Q000266:history*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D016519:Hospitals, Religious / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans; D011287:Prejudice; D012042:Registries; D013332:Student Dropouts / Q000266:history; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom