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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
The main problem in staffing military hospitals with female nurses, Florence Nightingale explained in 1857, was to find “respectable and efficient women” who would be willing to undertake such work. Many women would apply for the positions but few would be acceptable. “Many a woman who will make a respectable and efficient Assistant-Nurse [the equivalent of our modern staff nurse] under the eye of a vigilant Head-Nurse, will not do at all when put in a military ward,” Nightingale said, because, “As a body, the mass of Assistant-Nurses are too low in moral principle, and too flighty in manner, to make any use of.” Nightingale thought that efficient and respectable assistant nurses had “in a great degree, to be created.” Developing respectability and efficiency in hospital nurses were the two major goals of nineteenth-century nursing reformers, and vigilant supervision was to be the major method for achieving them.
I thank the Wellcome Trust, the Hanna Institute for the History of Medicine, and Wellesley College's History Department for funding that made possible research for this article.
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45 Archives of St. Bartholomew's Hospital (hereafter cited as SBH), Ha3/12, Minutes of Treasurer's and Almoners' Committee, 4 February & 5 August 1875.
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50 BL, Add. Mss, 45790 f157, Nightingale to her father, 22 February 1854.
51 Archives of St. George's Hospital (hereafter cited as SGH), MBG, 19 August 1857.
52 BL 47722 ff 142-43, Nightingale to Henry Bonham-Carter, 21 January 1890.
53 ibid, ff 163-64, Nightingale to Bonham-Carter, 4 February 1890.
54 SGH, MBG, 19 August 1857.
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105 Hospital throat was a common problem among new probationers. It was thought at the time to be a strep throat.
106 CCH, Register of Nurses 1889-1904 & Register of Nurses B 1889-1904, March 1889-February 1891 for the years 1889-91. These registers also have no pagination and simply lists the probationers chronologically as they entered the hospital. This information is found on the first few pages of these two Registers.
107 Nursing Archives of Boston University, Letter of Nightingale to Catherine Marsh, 7 February 1877, Folder 6, 1877/71.
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118 CCH, Mr. Biss's Report, (printed pamphlet opposite p. 253), Minutes of Board of Governors (1888-96), 13 July 1892.
119 Evidence of Miss Lückes, Select Committee on the Registration of Nurses, PP, 1905, 7: 761-66.
120 “Never let your voice be heard by the ladies and gentlemen of the house except when necessary, and then as little possible,” and “Never begin to talk to your mistress unless to deliver a message or ask a necessary question,” one servant's handbook explained in 1859. It pointed out that ladies were very differently educated from servants and often found the servant's conversation coarse and stupid ( Mrs.Motherly, , The Servant's Behaviour Book, or. Hints on Manners and Dress (London, 1859), pp. 19–22.Google Scholar) Or again, “Always stand when a lady or a gentleman comes into the room,” and keep your hands in front of you or at your side (ibid, pp. 40-51) These were standard rules probationers had to follow.
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123 GY/A225/2, Minutes of General Court of Governors, 10 March 1880, pp. 99-110.
124 PP, 1892, 13: 226.
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126 In 1872 Guy's was paying day nurses £33,10.0 and night nurses an average of £35 a year, and they received board and lodging as well. GY/D40/21, Salaries and Wages, 25 March 1872, Table III.
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