A bigger grievance amongst South African nurses – referred to as ‘colonial’ nurses – was that these imported British nurses were recruited in preference to local professionals, in spite of their lack of experience in the country. The Morning Post described the problem in February 1900:
SOUTH AFRICAN WAR NURSES: FROM A COLONIAL POINT OF VIEW. The trained nurses of South Africa are not in the calm and tranquil mood that befits their profession. As at first colonial volunteers were refused permission to fight in the ranks, so since the outbreak of war nearly all the applications of the colonial trained nurses for appointments on the Army Nursing Staff have met with official refusal. Local nurses are overlooked and rejected, and such volunteers are informed that “plenty of nurses are coming out from England,” “No more nurses are needed,” etc. Surely the height of absurdity has been reached when applicants in Capetown have been gravely advised that their only chance of attachment to the Army Medical Service is to journey to London and to endeavour to join a draft of nurses from home … So the trained and certificated nurse stands idle while time is lost and money is expended in the importation from England of nursing material which could most satisfactorily be supplied on the spot.
It is perfectly fair— and the colonial women are the first to concede this— that the British Army Nursing Reserve Corps should have a chance of active service. But it is clearly unjust to the highly-trained certificated women of South Africa that the nursing material for the Army should be chosen almost entirely from “Uitlander” sources. Many of the nurses in the Colony have gained their certificates in the best British hospitals. They are the sisters and daughters of settled colonists, men with a stake in the country. All are used to colonial ways, and have colonial sympathies. In addition, they have a specialised knowledge of malarial and local diseases. Many of them have served useful apprenticeships in mining hospitals, are “salted” to the hardships of a rough-and-ready life on the veldt, and are accustomed to the eccentricities of a colonial commissariat. In fact, they are just the women needed for camp and field hospital, and nurses with such useful practical antecedents should have had the first chance of attachment to the Army Nursing Service in South Africa.’
Whatever their shortcomings, the British nurses were brave women to risk the long journey to another continent, the perils of disease and the deprivations of life in a war zone, in addition to the danger of death or injury. Nursing Notes reminded readers in January 1902 that some nurses had died in the course of their nursing service in the South African War:
‘The shadow of the war has fallen on our ranks also – nursing sisters have laid down their lives for their country in battles none the less grim because waged in the hospital tent instead of on the open veldt. The response to the demand for more and yet more nurses was as ready as to the call for fighting men, and in spite of errors and mistakes, good work has been done.’
Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem in recognition of the nursing sisters who had died in South Africa, published in ‘The Five Nations’. It was reprinted in Nursing Notes in November, 1903, under a heading which read:
‘So much criticism has been deservedly expended upon the doings of nurses in South Africa that it is pleasant to quote this sincere appreciation of the devotion shown by those who died at their work, giving their lives for their country as truly as any soldier.’
The poem, called Dirge of Dead Sisters, read:
Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order,
(Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?)
And the clink of iron tea-cups and the piteous noble laughter,
And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?
(Now, and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now, and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by—
Let us now remember many honourable women,
Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.)
Who recalls the morning and the thunder through the foothills,
(Tufts of fleecy shrapnel strung along the empty plains?)
And the sun-scarred Red-Cross coaches creeping guarded to the culvert,
And the faces of the Sisters looking gravely from the trains?
(When the days were torment and the nights were clouded terror,
When the Powers of Darkness had dominion on our soul—
When we fled consuming through the Seven Hells of fever,
These put out their hands to us and healed and made us whole.)
Who recalls the midnight by the bridge’s wrecked abutment
(Autumn rain that rattles like a Maxim on the tin?)
And the lightning-dazzled levels and the streaming, straining wagons,
And the faces of the Sisters as they bore the wounded in?
(Till the pain was merciful and stunned us into silence
When each nerve cried out on God that made the misused clay;
When the body triumphed and the last poor shame departed—
These abode our agonies and wiped the sweat away.)
Who recalls the noontide and the funerals through the market
(Blanket-hidden bodies, flagless, followed by the flies?)
And the footsore firing party, and the dust and stench and staleness,
And the faces of the Sisters and the glory in their eyes?
(Bold behind the battle, the open camp all-hallowed,
Patient, wise and mirthful in the ringed and reeking town,
These endured unresting, til they rested from their labours—
Little wasted bodies, ah, so light to lower down!)
Yet their graves are scattered and their names are clean forgotten,
Earth shall not remember, but the Waiting Angel knows
Them that dies at Uitvlugt when the plague was on the city—
Her that fell at Simon’s Town in service on our foes.
Wherefore, we they ransomed, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now, and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by,
Praise with love and worship many honourable women,
Those that gave their lives for us when we were like to die!
Florence and Mabel returned to England aboard the SS Britannic, which left Cape Town for England on October 6, 1900. On board were 20 wounded, who were named individually on the shipping list. Four of them were nursing sisters. There were 60 other ‘sick laying down’ and 395 convalescents; 10 ‘wounded laying down’ and 128 convalescing from wounds. Only six on board were there simply ‘for passage home’. And on board ‘for duty on voyage’ were Florence Shore and Mabel Rogers, with five other nurses and three surgeons.
*
Their service in the war earned Florence and Mabel the South Africa campaign medal. In all, Florence received four medals related to this conflict, all now in the collection of the Florence Nightingale museum in London: the Queen’s South Africa medal, which was silver and showed the Queen’s head; Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service Reserve medal; a medal commemorating the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital, with the Prince of Wales’s feathers and a crown; and a special medal presented by the County Borough of Sunderland, inscribed on the reverse with her name and ‘for services rendered in South Africa during the Boer War. J. G. Kirtley, Mayor.’
*
The City of Sunderland was immensely proud of its soldiers and nurses who had served in South Africa, and welcomed them back with great ceremony. In October 1902, after the war ended, the Council passed a unanimous resolution:
‘That the Council hereby records its appreciation of the heroic devotion to the Empire displayed by Nurses Mabel Rogers, Florence Nightingale Shore, and Florence Elizabeth Filkin in going out to South Africa and there rendering signal service to the sick and wounded in the recent war. And that a certificate on vellum of such appreciation, sealed with the Common Corporate Seal, be presented to each of those nurses.’
The presentation took place in November, at a special meeting
of the Council at which nearly 100 volunteers were also given the Freedom of the Borough, and a special plaque was unveiled to the soldiers and nurses. The Mayor, addressing Nursing Sisters Rogers, Filkin and Shore, and the officers and men of the Imperial yeomanry, Durham Light Infantry and Field Telegraph Corps, said he offered them ‘on behalf of the Corporation and the inhabitants of the town a cordial and earnest welcome home from South Africa’. The local paper, reporting his speech, recorded that:
‘There was one word he would specially like to say on behalf of the nurses who volunteered. They went out in a warlike spirit, and the excitement that accompanied the soldier who went out on the field of battle. They went out to nurse the sick and the wounded at great sacrifice to their own personal comfort, parting from friends, not knowing to what they would be subject. (Applause.) Those brave nurses went from our midst, and he was told on the highest authority that the devotion they exercised in the discharge of singularly difficult work was most creditable to themselves and the institution they belonged to. (Applause.)’
He then presented the three nurses with their certificates and the gold medals inscribed with the borough arms. The memorial tablet of bronze and brass was unveiled, listing all the men from Sunderland who had served in the war, and recognising the ‘heroic devotion’ of the nurses. Florence and Mabel’s return could not have been more gratifying in its recognition.
*
And though she left the Transvaal in 1900, that was not the end of Florence’s connection with South Africa. She was to become a godmother in 1910 to a girl called Margaret Dru Drury, daughter of Jean Wilkinson, part of the family at Middlethorpe Hall whom Florence had visited so often. She had married a British doctor working in Grahamstown, South Africa. In the meantime, though, Florence and Mabel returned to the Sunderland District Nursing Association, to take up their posts nursing the ‘sick poor’ of that town as Queen’s Nurses.
Chapter 15
One Queen’s Nurse, two furnished rooms and a bicycle.’
Sunderland – an industrial city twelve miles south of Newcastle on the north east coast of England – was a very different experience for the two Queen’s Nurses who had trained in the cultured capital cities of Edinburgh, Dublin and London.
The major industry in the city was shipbuilding, fuelled by export trade via the River Wear in coal, salt and glass. Ships had been built in Sunderland since the 14th century, and between 1846 and 1854, Wearside shipyards produced almost a third of all the ships built in the UK. Towards the end of the 19th century, wooden ships gave way to composite vessels of wood and iron, then steel cargo ships and tankers, all fuelling demand from the yards. During this time the population of the town expanded tenfold, from just over 15,000 in 1887 to nearer 150,000 in 1911. In 1904 and 1907, the Sunderland shipyard started by William Doxford and Sons in 1840 won the ‘blue riband’ for the highest production rate in the world. Success in its main industry was reflected in the public face of the city. The Gazeteer of the British Isles recorded in 1887 that:
‘Its facilities as a port have been greatly improved of late years; a harbour has been made by two stone piers 590 and 650 yards long, extensive docks have been constructed, and a lighthouse has been erected on the N. pier-head, 64 ft. high, with 2 fixed lights 73 and 55 ft. above high water and seen 13 and 6 miles; on the S. pier-head is a fixed light 58 ft. above high water and seen 10 miles. The harbour, with the docks, is 78 ac. in extent. A large trade is done with the Baltic ports and with Holland … After its coal trade and shipping, the town depends chiefly upon its shipbuilding; it has also large marine engineering works, works for heavy iron-forging, and for the mfr. of glass, cordage, earthenware, &c. Sunderland has many handsome public buildings (including several charitable and educational institutions), excellent sanitary arrangements, and parks, museum, free library, school of art, and public baths.’
One of the ‘handsome public buildings’ of the city was the Victoria Hall. Opened in 1872, it was a gothic-style building used for public meetings and entertainments. Fifteen years before Mabel and Florence arrived in the city, the Hall had been the site of a tragic disaster, when around 2,000 children were attending a show. As they hurried towards the exits at the end of the entertainment, excited by the offer of prizes for certain numbered tickets, they encountered a narrow stairwell and a door bolted to open only 20 inches wide. Unable to get through the slender gap fast enough, the children at the front were crushed and suffocated by the weight of the crowd pushing down the stairs behind them. One hundred and eighty three children died, including an entire Bible class of 30 children from the local Sunday school. A statue of a grieving mother carrying a dead child was erected in Mowbray Park in the city, as a memorial to the victims of the tragedy. Florence and Mabel must have passed it many times during their time in Sunderland, as the park was only a few hundred yards from the Nurses’ Home in Murton Street.
It was not all good news and success in the Sunderland shipbuilding industry, either. Work in the shipyards was hard and dangerous, with death and injury to workers a commonplace occurrence. Medical officers at shipyards, and safety clothing and equipment, would not be introduced until after the second World War. The work was also subject to peaks and troughs in demand for ships, and the resulting fluctuations in wages made life even harder for the families of the workers. During Florence and Mabel’s time in Sunderland, the town went through one of its worst depressions, from 1908 to 1910, when work was scarce, wages were cut and men laid off from the shipyards. With such large numbers of people employed in such dangerous work, and the endless need for nursing of injuries and illness in very poor families, it is not surprising that the workers and the Queen’s Nurses soon became acquainted.
When Mabel Rogers had first arrived in Sunderland at the beginning of 1898, the staff of the Sunderland District Nursing Association at 28 Murton Street consisted of a Superintendent and four nurses. Demand for their services was high, and local factories began to pay a subscription to ensure that their workers could be treated by Queen’s Nurses when they needed them. By 1901, there were five nurses working from the Home, in addition to Mabel Rogers, who was appointed the Home’s Superintendent, and Florence, who became Assistant Superintendent. Two of the nurses, Margaret Wilson and Isabel Russell, were from Scotland, Kate Gibson had come from Norfolk, and Elizabeth Rose from Staffordshire. Annie Heyward was by far the most exotic arrival, having been born in Spain. Three servants – Ellen Barnett the cook, 16 year old Annie Sawkings the housemaid and 15 year old Margaret Scott, the scullery maid – looked after the household.
Running the household and overseeing the servants was one of Mabel’s principal duties as Superintendent. That role had to be combined with being a teacher of probationers and inexperienced nurses, and the main contact for local doctors, the Committee of the Association, the general public who supported the Association, and patients and their friends. The struggle of the Superintendent of a small home to balance the competing demands on her time were described in an article in Nursing Notes in October 1903:
‘One adviser will tell her, “What is needed is to rouse local interest in the Institution. You must accept invitations, make all the friends you can, never refuse to see a caller, and keep well up with all social duties.” From another quarter she will learn, “A Superintendent’s first duty is to be an efficient Hausfrau.” From a third, that her nights must be given to study and her days to teaching. Yet another friend is of the opinion that now is the time for a little rest. Finally, as in a multiplicity of counsellors wisdom may always be found … someone is sure to ‘ingeminate’ the wholesome truth that Nurses and Superintendents, Homes and Committees, Patrons and Reports and Donations and Doctors all exist for the sake of Patients, and that they are the persons who must hold the centre of her thoughts, and with whom all her duties, from least to greatest, are more or less directly concerned.’
The same article, by Miss M Loane, sets out how the district nurses in the Home should be looked after. For
all the hardships and challenges encountered on their rounds, every effort was made to ensure that the women who had chosen the life of a district nurse were comfortably and securely provisioned by the Association throughout their service. The aim was:
‘To see that every person in the house knows her work and does it, to be careful that the work is not excessive in amount, and is done in the healthiest and pleasantest circumstances possible, and to ensure that each member of the household, from the senior staff nurse to the youngest servant, is regularly supplied with all that she is entitled to or really needs.’
To achieve this, Miss Loane dictates that the furniture in the house should be ‘strong and light’, stairs covered with canvas, and wallpapers varnished ‘so that they can be washed from time to time’. Bedrooms for each nurse should contain
‘a really comfortable modern bed with light, warm bedding, a wardrobe or hanging cupboard of some kind, a roomy chest of drawers, an easy chair, a washstand and pedestal cupboard, a dressing table and looking glass, a small table, a waste-paper basket, and a linen basket… Nothing looks better in a bedroom than white table covers, etc, but as it appears to be an ultimate law of nature that District Nurses must spill ink over these articles, it is best that they should be of woollen tapestry, or art serge that will bear re-dyeing.’
In the nurses’ sitting room, she recommends comfortable chairs, a bookcase filled with books ‘that nurses will read’ (‘care should be taken that they are light in weight and extremely well printed’), a daily newspaper, vases of flowers and, if possible, a stand of growing plants. The pictures should preferably be water-colours,
‘cheerful in subject and treatment. If warlike members of the Committee insist on presenting chilly engravings with mountains of wounded men in the foreground, effusive generals in the centre, and ruined villages in the distance, let them by hung in the hall where no one need look at them, or in the board room where the donors can enjoy them at leisure.’
The daily routine of the household was also aimed at providing a comfortable home life for the nurses. There was a clothes horse by the fire for wet cloaks, and talk of work was forbidden at meal times, which were eaten around a communal table with flowers, polished cutlery and glasses, and hot plates and dishes. The Superintendent was reminded that
The Nightingale Shore Murder Page 12
