Queer Places:
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, W Smithfield, London EC1A 7BE
20 Upper Wimpole St, Marylebone, London W1G 6LZ, UK
St Helena Churchyard
Thoroton, Rushcliffe Borough, Nottinghamshire, England
Ethel
Gordon Fenwick (née Manson; 26 January 1857 – 13 March 1947) was a British
nurse who played a major role in the History of Nursing in the United Kingdom.
She campaigned to procure a nationally recognised certificate for nursing, to
safeguard the title "Nurse", and lobbied Parliament to pass a law to control
nursing and limit it to "registered" nurses only.
Isla Stewart (1856–1910) was an
English hospital matron of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and a founding
member of the Royal British Nurses' Association. She died in Chilworth, Surrey
in the presence of her dear friend, Fenwick.
She was born Ethel Gordon Manson in the Morayshire town of Elgin in
Scotland, the daughter of a wealthy doctor who died early in her life. Ethel's
mother then married George Storer, a Member of Parliament. She was educated
privately at Middlethorpe Hall, Middlethorpe, Yorkshire. At the age of 21 she
commenced nurse training at the Children's Hospital in Nottingham as a paying
probationer nurse, and then at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Her expertise was
soon noted and it was not long before she left for London, where she worked in
hospitals in Whitechapel, and Richmond.
In 1881, at the age of 24, Ethel was appointed Matron of St Bartholomew's
Hospital, a post she held until 1887 when she resigned her post to marry Dr
Bedford Fenwick, becoming known professionally as Mrs Bedford Fenwick.[1]
SShe was the founder of the Royal British Nurses' Association in 1887.[2]
She was instrumental in founding Florence Nightingale International
Foundation, the premier foundation of the International Council of Nurses, and
was its president for the first five years. She extended significantly the
training period for nurses, and campaigned for the state registration of
nurses in the United Kingdom. This was achieved through the Nurses
Registration Act 1919, and Ethel Gordon Fenwick appears as "Nurse No. 1" when
the register opened in 1923. (New Zealand had been the first country to
introduce nurse registration in 1902, when Ellen Dougherty became the first
registered nurse in the world.)
Ethel Fenwick acquired the i>Nursing Record in 1893 and became its
editor in 1903. It was renamed The British Journal of Nursing and
through its pages for the next 54 years her thinking and her beliefs are
clearly revealed. She disagreed with
Florence Nightingale and with Henry Burdett about registration of nurses.
She believed that there was a need for training to a recognised standard and
this meant confining entry to the profession to the daughters of the higher
social classes. She opposed paying nurses in training, because it attracted
the wrong sort of girl. She was very keen to see control over domiciliary
nursing.[3]
IIn 1927 she established the British College of Nurses with an endowment of
£100,000 from a grateful patient of Dr Fenwick. She was president, and he was
treasurer, for life.
In 1999 an English Heritage "blue plaque" was attached to her former home
at 20 Upper Wimpole Street, London.[4]
My published books:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Gordon_Fenwick