The Nightingale Shore Murder (12 page)
Read The Nightingale Shore Murder Online
Authors: Rosemary Cook
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 âsick laying down' and 395 convalescents; 10 âwounded laying down' and 128 convalescing from wounds. Only six on board were there simply âfor passage home'. And on board âfor 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 âfor 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:
âThat 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 â
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:
âThere 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 âheroic 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 âsick poor' of that town as Queen's Nurses.
One Queen's Nurse, two furnished rooms and a bicycle.'
Sunderland â an industrial city twelve miles south of Newcastle on the north east coast of England â 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 14
th
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 19
th
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 âblue 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:
âIts 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 ship-building; 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 âhandsome 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 â Ellen Barnett the cook, 16 year old Annie Sawkings the housemaid and 15 year old Margaret Scott, the scullery maid â 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:
âOne 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 âingeminate' 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:
âTo 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 â
strong and light'
, stairs covered with canvas, and wallpapers varnished â
so that they can be washed from time to time
'. Bedrooms for each nurse should contain
âa 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 â
that nurses will read'
(âcare 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,
âcheerful in subject and treatment. If war-like 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
âshe is not catering for hungry schoolboys, but for women, perhaps not over strong to begin with, tired with work of a painful and wearing nature, and often half-sickened by the bad air of unwholesome cottages. They need to be tempted by good and varied food, well prepared, served and carved.'
Where there was a sheltered garden, tables and chairs were placed outside for tea to be served there, as â
every hour spent in pure air is of importance to the nurses' health
.' Excursions and entertainments suggested for probationers and young nurses included
âa dozen miles on the top of a tram, an excursion to a neighbouring village, to listen to an outdoor band, to take a short sea trip, or even to have permission to take afternoon tea at a gaily decorated tea shop; all these are pleasures that will by no means be despised.'
Miss Loane could not have imagined that, in just a few years' time, many of these nurses would be living in military camps and nursing gassed and wounded soldiers from the trenches of World War One.
Even in England, not all the Queen's Nurses lived this cosy institutional life. Miss Loane's advice was for Superintendents running a small nursing home where the Queen's Nurses lived together â usually in the towns. Other Queen's Nurses were not so lucky, and for them, life was not so gracious. They relied on lodgings or cottages provided and funded by local subscription, which also had to stretch to a means of travelling about their district. The records for every local District Nursing Association contained meticulous entries summarising this minimal local provision, area by area. A small parish in Lancashire, for example, funded âOne Queen's Nurse, two furnished rooms and a bicycle.'
One nurse wrote plaintively (and anonymously) to the Queen's Nurses' magazine in 1909, asking that local district nursing Committees ensure that a bath was provided in all nurses' lodgings. Currently, she explained, they sometimes had to rely on a jug of water and a bowl left outside their rooms by the landlady â
with the air of one going well beyond her duty
.' Most Queen's Nurses in 1910, an article on pension funds pointed out, were:
âdrawn from the ranks of the daughters of the poorer professional men, struggling medicos, county clergy and unknown solicitors ... many of them have been left orphans totally unprovided for, except so far as a fairly good education and robust health and strength are a provision. Very few, indeed, have any private means.'
They lived on salaries of £30-35 a year, which provided little to spend on comforts or leisure. They were, though, often given gifts of food and drink by local people, patients and their families.
In addition to managing the servants, the furnishing, laundry and maintenance of the Home, the nurses' diets and social life, and the Home's accounts, the Superintendent had her teaching duties. These were â
generally given in the form of lectures and classes from three to four o'clock twice or three times weekly...':
âPractical instruction is usually given in the morning, when the Superintendent accompanies each probationer on a certain number of rounds... The Superintendent must on no account find fault with the probationer publicly. In some cases this would so undermine her authority that good work in that house would henceforth be impossible; while in most cases (such is the British love of the oppressed) the severe senior will be voted “an âorrid tongued old varmint,” and any neglect or oversight on the part of the probationer will be sedulously concealed. I have known patients circumstantially describe visits that had never been paid, and ascribe effects to poultices that had never been mixed, to try and shield a probationer who acknowledged that she had not been within half a mile of the house.'
In addition to the clinical knowledge and skills they needed, the nurses were also taught how to develop and nurture good relationships with the patient and their family, and to mobilise the help and support of neighbours, colleagues and local networks: the essential skills that differentiate district nursing from hospital nursing. Ten âpersonal rules for district nurses' at this time were listed by the indefatigable Miss Loane:
1. âSpare no pains to make the first visit to a patient a successful one. Encourage the friends to talk freely, and never ridicule or ignore their attempts to describe the course of the disease. If they hesitate for a word, supply it.
2. Never be the first to speak of religion. The nurse's religion must be shown by acts, not words.
3. Avoid speaking of politics or any highly controversial matters.
4. Make a point of learning as soon as possible the names, addresses and occupations of all relatives of your patients who are living in the same town. This simple precaution may save many awkward complications.
5. Never repeat what you hear, or describe what you see or do, or carry information of any kind from one house to another. Even the very persons who try to cross-question you will gratefully appreciate this honourable reticence. The fear that their private affairs will become known to all their neighbours is often the reason why the self-respecting poor are unwilling to admit a district nurse.
6. If obliged to refuse a request, never do it in a peremptory manner but with a gracious reluctance.
7. Always give the doctors your loyal support. When questioned by patients or their friends as to your opinion of any doctor, say that he understands the case fully and is doing all that can be done. Try to encourage the belief that for all ordinary work one doctor is quite as good as another, and that when there is anything unusual in a case, the doctor will be the first person to suggest consulting a specialist.
8. Be on friendly terms with the Ministers of every form of faith, with Church Workers, District Visitors, and all who are trying in whatever measure or degree to benefit the poor.
9. Co-operate with the Relieving Officer, the School Board Visitor, and the Sanitary Inspector.
10. Receive courteously everyone who comes to see you. Never make an enemy for yourself or the Association.'
