Page 38 - QARANC Vol 18 No 2 2020

36 The Gazette QARANC Association
liked the idea of an ordinary person) and Sue McAteer, General Secretary of QARANC Association secured funding from them. Maria and Donato Totsi who own the house in Spital Gardens happily agreed to it going on their house.
Celebrating the service and sacrifice of a nurse, particularly now during the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, and at this time of extraordinary happenings in the world when we are so dependent on the skills and dedication of nurses
Florence
2020
2020 is the year of the Nurse and the Midwife but we could not have imagined the challenges facing nurses and midwives as the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the world. Whilst many events were cancelled, The International History of Nursing Conference organised by the European Association for the History of Nursing took place in Florence, Italy 13-15 February.
The Heritage Committee submitted three papers to the conference, with a number of outcomes in mind. We wanted to give committee members the opportunity to speak at a major conference; we wanted to advertise the wealth of material in our archives at the Museum of Military Medicine; and we wanted the opportunity to network with other historians interested in the history of Army nursing. By linking three papers together we demonstrated how the history of Army nursing, and the influence of Florence Nightingale, could be seen through the lives of three women.
The Crimean War presented by Fiona Mitford and Keiron Spires Penelope Gertrude Veysie was born on the 18 August 1807 at Plymtree, Devon, the daughter of Reverend Daniel Veysie, Rector of Plymtree, and Mrs Anne Veysie. Gertrude trained as a nurse at St John’s House in London.
St John’s House was founded in 1848 as a ‘Training Institution for Nurses for Hospitals, Families and the Poor’. It was a religious community run by a Master, who was a clergyman, and a Lady Superintendent. The aim was to improve the qualifications of nurses, and also to raise the character of
(among others) in our NHS, seems very appropriate.
So, fast forward to a couple of days into lockdown when the postman left the plaque on my doorstep. Of course the unveiling event has been put on hold ... but hopefully not for ever!
Liz Cook Chair, Friends of Spital Cemetery
Editor’s Note: We understand that Anne is buried in a family plot, and
the Gallipoli marker possibly refers to her sister Mary Fletcher, who was a member of QAIMNS(R) in World War 1. Some of the research into Anne’s war service was done by the Chair of the Association Heritage Committee. Anne’s grave is in Chesterfield (Spital) Cemetery, Section D grave 9953. If anyone lives in the area and is able to visit, we would love a close up photograph of the grave as it will tell us what the inscription says.
The brooch gifted to Gertrude Veysie from the Sultan of Turkey in recognition of her service in the Crimea
nurses by providing moral and religious instruction. The Institution opened at 36 Fitzroy Square, in St Pancras, and was named St John’s House because it was in the parish of St John the Evangelist. It provided training for both the ordinary ‘working-class’ nurses, who today we would call Staff Nurses, and for ‘upper- class’ ladies who were to be the unpaid Sisters and Lady Superintendents.
As they were a religious sisterhood the trainee nurses were called probationers. In this Anglican Sisterhood the nurses did not take vows of celibacy, religious obedience or seclusion. The Church wanted the nurses to have a free and willing devotion to the care of the sick as part of Christian charity. St John’s House had a centralised nursing department with staff nurses reporting to the Sisters, and Sisters to the Lady Superintendent, a model which was to eventually become the norm throughout the English-speaking world.
Probationers received board, lodging, medical assistance, laundry, and clothing, and were paid one pound a month for their services. They nursed in hospitals and private houses, and when required attended the sick poor. If at the end of five years they had proved themselves worthy, they received a certificate and were entered on the St John’s House list of certified nurses. The Sisters paid for their training and if resident, also for their board and lodging.
In 1854 six nurses from the St John’s
House went to the Crimea with Florence Nightingale, since St John’s House was at that time one of the few sources of trained nurses. In 1856 the Sisterhood took over the nursing at King’s College Hospital and from 1862 to 1868 a six- month training in midwifery was given there, with the help of a grant from the newly founded Nightingale Fund Council.
When people think of nursing in the Crimea they usually think of Nightingale at Scutari, however there were many other nurses, many of whom were not under the jurisdiction of Nightingale, and many other hospitals. In November 1854, following Florence Nightingale’s success at Scutari the Admiralty decided to send out ‘tried and approved nurses’ selected by a Ladies Committee in London, and established a 40 bed hospital at Therapia. Many of the patients were marines and men of the Naval Brigade from the Siege of Sevastopol. In January 1855 the Reverend and Mrs McKenzie arrived with a small party of ladies and nurses. Mrs McKenzie, an experienced nurse, having trained at the Middlesex Hospital had as one of her three assistants Miss Gertrude Veysie.
A number of the nursing staff proved inadequate or incapable and soon left or were dismissed. Later many tributes were paid to the quality of the management of the small hospital and the ensuing parliamentary report stated:
‘They shrank from no kind of