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Introductory voice recording by Karen 1.23mins

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Introductory voice recording by Karen 1.23mins

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Borji M, Otaghi M, Kazembeigi S. The Impact of Orem’s Self-Care Model on the Quality of Life In Patients With Type II Diabetes. Biomed Pharmacol J 2017;10(1).

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Borji M, Otaghi M, Kazembeigi S. The Impact of Orem’s Self-Care Model on the Quality of Life In Patients With Type II Diabetes. Biomed Pharmacol J 2017;10(1).

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Borji M, Otaghi M, Kazembeigi S. The Impact of Orem’s Self-Care Model on the Quality of Life In Patients With Type II Diabetes. Biomed Pharmacol J 2017;10(1).

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8 minute presentation

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Old Explanatory Booklet on the 12 Activities of Daily living 

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Old Explanatory Booklet on the 12 Activities of Daily living 

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Article:  Mirna Elsherif, Helen Noble (2011)

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Ms. Henderson categorized nursing activities into 14 components, based on human needs:

1. Breathe normally.

2. Eat and drink adequately.

3. Eliminate body wastes.

4. Move and maintain desirable postures.

5. Sleep and rest.

6. Select suitable clothes-dress and undress.

7. Maintain body temperature within normal range by adjusting clothing and modifying the environment

8. Keep the body clean and well-groomed and protect the integument

9. Avoid dangers in the environment and avoid injuring others.

10. Communicate with others in expressing emotions, needs, fears, or opinions.

11. Worship according to one’s faith.

12. Work in such a way that there is a sense of accomplishment.

13. Play or participate in various forms of recreation.

14. Learn, discover, or satisfy the curiosity that leads to normal development and health and use the available health facilities.

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Mary Eliza Mahoney pursued a nursing career which supported these aims. She is noted for becoming the first African American licensed nurse.

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Mary Eliza Mahoney pursued a nursing career which supported these aims. She is noted for becoming the first African American licensed nurse.

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Eager to encourage greater equality for African Americans and women, Mary Eliza Mahoney pursued a nursing career which supported these aims. She is noted for becoming the first African American licensed nurse.

Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in the spring of 1845 in Boston, Massachusetts. The exact date of her birth is unknown. Born to freed slaves who had moved to Boston from North Carolina, Mahoney learned from an early age the importance of racial equality. She was educated at Phillips School in Boston, which after 1855, became one of the first integrated schools in the country.

When she was in her teens, Mahoney knew that she wanted to become a nurse, so she began working at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. The hospital was dedicated to providing healthcare only to women and their children. It was also exceptional because it had an all-women staff of physicians. Here Mahoney worked for 15 years in a variety of roles. She acted as janitor, cook, and washer women. She also had the opportunity to work as a nurse's aide, enabling her to learn a great deal about the nursing profession.

The New England Hospital for Women and Children operated one of the first nursing schools in the United States. In 1878, at the age of 33, Mahoney was admitted to the hospital's professional graduate school for nursing. The program, which ran for 16 months, was intensive. Students attended lectures and gained first-hand experience in the hospital. Many students were not able to complete the program because of its many requirements. Of the 42 students that entered the program in 1878, only four completed it in 1879. Mahoney was one of the women who finished the program, making her the first African American in the US to earn a professional nursing license.

After she finished her training, Mahoney decided not to follow a career in public nursing due to the overwhelming discrimination often encountered there. Instead, she pursued a career as a private nurse to focus on the care needs of individual clients. Her patients were mostly from wealthy white families, who lived up and down the east coast. She was known for her efficiency, patience, and caring bedside manner.

Mahoney was an active participant in the nursing profession. In 1896, she joined the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (NAAUSC), which later became known as the American Nurses Association (ANA). The NAAUSC consisted mainly of white members, which were not always welcoming to black nurses. Mahoney felt that a group was needed which advocated for the equality of African American nurses. In 1908, she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). In the following year, at the NACGN's first national convention, she gave the opening speech. At the convention, the organization's members elected Mahoney to be the national chaplain and gave her a life membership.

After decades as a private nurse, Mahoney became the director of the Howard Orphanage Asylum for black children in Kings Park, Long Island in New York City. She served as the director from 1911 until 1912.

She finally retired from nursing after 40 years in the profession. However, she continued to champion women's rights. After the 19 th Amendment was ratified in August 1920, Mahoney was among the first women who registered to vote in Boston.

Mahoney lived until she was 80. After three years of battling breast cancer, she died on January 4, 1926. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts.

Mahoney's pioneering spirit has been recognized with numerous awards and memorials. In 1936, the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses founded the Mary Mahoney Award in honor of her achievements. This award is given to nurses or groups of nurses who promote integration within their field. The award continues to be awarded today by the American Nurses Association. The AHA further honored Mahoney in 1976 by inducting her into their Hall of Fame. Mahoney joined another esteemed group of women in 1993, when she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

Mahoney's grave in Everett, Massachusetts has also become a memorial site. In 1973, Helen S. Miller, winner of the Mahoney Award in 1968, led a fundraising drive to erect a monument to Mahoney at the gravesite. Her efforts were supported by the national sorority for professional and student nurses, Chi Eta Phi, and the ANA. The memorial was completed in 1973, and stands as a testament to Mahoney's legacy.

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Eager to encourage greater equality for African Americans and women, Mary Eliza Mahoney pursued a nursing career which supported these aims. She is noted for becoming the first African American licensed nurse. Discover more at womenshistory.org

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Quick Facts

Name

Mary Mahoney

Birth Date

May 7, 1845

Death Date

January 4, 1926

Did You Know?

Mary Mahoney became the first black woman to complete nurse's training in 1879. She was also one of the first black members of the American Nurses Association.

Education

New England Hospital for Women and Children

Place of Birth

Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts

Place of Death

Boston, Massachusetts

AKA

Mary Mahoney

Full Name

Mary Eliza Mahoney

Mary Mahoney became the first Black woman to complete nurse's training in 1879.

Who Was Mary Mahoney?

Mary Mahoney was admitted to the nursing school of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, and became the first Black woman to complete nurse's training in 1879. She was also one of the first Black members of the American Nurses Association, and has been credited as one of the first women to register to vote in Boston following the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Mahoney was inducted into both the Nursing Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Early Life

Mary Eliza Mahoney was born on May 7, 1845 (some sources say April 16, 1845), in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. After working for several years as a private-duty nurse at Boston's New England Hospital for Women and Children, in 1878, Mahoney was admitted to the hospital's nursing program.

Pioneer of Nursing and Voting

The following year, Mary Mahoney made history when she became the first black woman to complete nurse's training. Subsequently, she became one of the first black members of the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later renamed the American Nurses Association), as well as a member of the newly founded National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.

In addition to her pioneering efforts in nursing, Mahoney has been credited as one of the first women to register to vote in Boston following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women's suffrage, on August 26, 1920.

Later Life and Career

In the early 1900s, Mahoney relocated to Long Island, New York, to serve a stint as supervisor of the Howard Orphan Asylum for Black Children, returning to Massachusetts thereafter.

Death

Mahoney was inducted into the Nursing Hall of Fame in 1976 and received induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. She died in Boston on January 4, 1926, at the age of 80.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

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Name Mary Mahoney Birth Date May 7, 1845 Death Date January 4, 1926 Did You Know? Mary Mahoney became the first black woman to complete nurse's training in 1879. She was also one of the first black members of the American Nurses Association.

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It was composed by Lystra Gretter, an instructor of nursing at the old Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, and was first used by its graduating class in the spring of 1893. It is an adaptation of the Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center hosted a series of performances of "Hey Florence!" this year, a musical about the everyday lives of nurses, starring active-duty nurses from Vanderbilt, "Hey Florence! received a standing ovation at each performance," said Donna Glassford, director of Cultural Enrichment and producer of "Hey Florence!" "A lot of people were amazed that nurses could...

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This modified "Hippocratic Oath" was composed in 1893 by Lystra E. Gretter and a Committee for the Farrand Training School for Nurses, Detroit. It was called the Florence Nightingale Pledge as a token of esteem for the founder of modern nursing. I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass...

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Public Health Advocate and Professional Reformer 

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Public Health Advocate and Professional Reformer 

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Lystra Eggert Gretter

Public Health Advocate and Professional Reformer

1858-1951

By David Yates

When Lystra Eggert Gretter was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2004, she was honored for her "tireless" efforts in promoting nursing as a respectable profession in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gretter made many contributions to nursing. She shifted the model of nursing education from a one-year apprenticeship to a three-year academic pursuit. She created nurse-run hospital wards instead of allowing nursing students to run them. Gretter cut the work day to 8-hour shifts, to afford nurses and students more time to study and recreate. She wrote what is believed to be the first standardized textbook for nursing education and created one of the first professional nursing libraries. And Gretter was a founding member, at the end of the 19th Century, of groups that later became the American Nurses Association and the National League for Nursing. She established an early visiting nurses association.

Noting that the public perception of nursing was that of "women's work," Gretter lobbied for more political power, including aligning nursing with suffragettes who sought the vote. And Gretter was "the moving spirit behind the creation of "The Florence Nightingale Pledge," an oath of ethics that many graduating nursing students still make today.

Gretter also worked to advance public health generally. She established tuberculosis hospitals, lobbied for in-home nursing care and became a vocal public health advocate for Detroit's burgeoning poor and immigrant population. She also successfully introduced the first state-wide health inspections of school children and a free maternity/infant care clinic in Detroit.
Early years Professional Entry: The Farrand Training School for Nurses Daughters of the American Revolution Hospital Corps The Visiting Nurses Association Nursing Advocacy and Professional Associations The Florence Nightingale Pledge Final years

Early years

Lystra Elizabeth Eggert was born in Bayfield, Ontario in September 1858. Specific details regarding her family's early years in Canada are sketchy. Her Swiss-born father was one of the village physicians. Her mother was born in Canada of Dutch descent. A maternal grandfather was a Mennonite Bishop who migrated to the United States and then to Canada in the early nineteenth century.

Eggert inherited from her father a passion for health care and from her mother a benevolent Christian spirituality that characterized her adult life.

Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, Lystra's father enlisted as a surgeon in the Union Army. The family remained in Bayfield where Lystra began her primary education. In 1866, the rest of the family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Lystra continued her education in southern private schools.

At age 19, Lystra married John Birney Gretter in 1877. A veteran of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army, her 45-year-old husband was a Virginian who listed his occupation as Deputy U.S. Marshall in the 1880 census. The same census rather quaintly noted Lystra as "keeping house." It seemed Lystra Gretter could look forward to a secure life of middle class southern gentility.

Unfortunately, in 1884, tragedy struck as her husband died suddenly when she was 26, leaving her with a three-year-old daughter. Her father seems to have also passed away by this time. Together with her mother and sister, Gretter moved to Buffalo, New York, and enrolled in the Buffalo General Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1886.

Professional Entry: The Farrand Training School for Nurses

As a single mother returning to school, she was well ahead of her time. She graduated with honours in 1888 and was immediately appointed Principal of the Farrand Training School for Nurses at Harper Hospital, Detroit, in 1889. Gretter held the position of Nursing School Superintendent until 1907.

Despite her administrative inexperience, Gretter initiated sweeping reforms that would revolutionize nursing training, which was done in the hospital setting and involved a great deal of clinical work. Rather than overwork exhausted women in 12-15 hour shifts and 73+ hour work-weeks, the Farrand School was the first school to institute the eight-hour shift.

To make up for the reduction in floor hours by students, Gretter extended the nursing training system first from one to two years, and in 1896, to three years. She argued that "a part of the extra time thus afforded Nurses will be spent in study and outdoor recreation."

The Farrand School under Gretter's supervision became a model for nursing education. A Gretter biographer, Helen Manson, R.N., noted that nurse training became less an apprenticeship and more of a professional education under her direction.

Incredibly, there were few training manuals for nurses. Gretter is believed to have written the first standardized textbook for nursing training. She also formed a professional library and encouraged students to remain current in the latest nursing procedures. The novelty of her nurses' library attracted donations from across the continent.

Due largely to Gretter's efforts, in 1909 Michigan became one of the first states, after New York, that required the certification of practicing nurses.

Daughters of the American Revolution Hospital Corps

During the Spanish American War, Gretter recruited qualified nurses to staff the Daughters of the American Revolution Hospital Corps. Dr. Anita McGee, the hospital's chief medical officer, thanked Gretter for her "valuable assistance in the careful selection of graduate nurses" and further paid tribute to Gretter's nursing education system by expressing her belief that the training the nurses received was "so excellent" that it "has distinctly advanced the credit of the schools."

The Visiting Nurses Association

Gretter established the Detroit Visiting Nurses Association that encouraged nurses to visit major hospitals to study the latest in health care innovation. A Canadian whiskey distiller, Hiram Walker, recognized Gretter's reforms in nursing education by leaving a sizable bequest of $20,000 to the Farrand School.

In 1908, Gretter was appointed the Director of the Detroit Visiting Nurses Association where she turned her attention to broader social as well as health care issues. She established tuberculosis hospitals, lobbied for in-home nursing care and became a vocal public health advocate for Detroit's burgeoning poor and immigrant population. She also successfully introduced the first state-wide health inspections of school children and a free maternity/infant care clinic in Detroit.

Nursing Advocacy and Professional Associations

One of the barriers to improving the status of nursing as a profession was that it was considered "women's work" and, therefore, of little value. Gretter formed a strong alliance between the Michigan Nursing Association and the suffragettes in fighting for women's right to vote. Without political power, Gretter argued, nursing would never become a "respectable" profession.

In 1904, Gretter was the first President of the Michigan Nurses Association. She was also a founding member of the American Society of Superintendents of Nursing Training Schools (1893) which later became the National League for Nursing. Gretter founded in September 1896 the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States which later became the American Nurses Association. [see Munson (1949), p. 346]

The Florence Nightingale Pledge

One of Gretter's most enduring legacies was "The Florence Nightingale Pledge." Although Gretter modestly credited the work of a committee which she presided over for its creation, Gretter biographers claim that she was "the moving spirit behind the idea" for the pledge.

The Nightingale Pledge was a statement of the ethics and principles of the nursing profession. It included a pledge to "abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous" and to "zealously seek to nurse those who are ill wherever they may be and whenever they are in need." In a 1935 revision to the pledge, Gretter widened the role of the nurse by including an oath to become a "missioner of health" dedicated to the advancement of "human welfare"--an expansion of nurses' bedside focus to an approach that encompassed public health.

Until the 1970's, the pledge was solemnly recited at graduation or "Pinning" ceremonies across North America. In recent decades, the pledge has either been dropped or substantially altered because of its reference to loyalty to physicians. Nursing is an autonomous profession and any loyalty should be to protect the patient, even in the face of physician opposition.

Final years

In addition to helping recruit nurses for the American Red Cross Nursing Service in two world wars, Gretter remained the Matron of the Detroit Visiting Nurses Association until her death in Grosse Pointe in 1951.

Lystra Eggert Gretter literally defined modern nursing as a profession of noble principles and high standards of education. Gretter herself said that she believed "improved education, sublimated by spiritual gifts and graces, will develop nursing into a wider, more helpful ministration patterned after the example of Him who went about doing good."

Biography author David Yates is a high school history teacher in Clinton, Ontario, a freelance author, and a Municipal Councillor in Goderich, Ontario. He can be reached at .

References

Miller, Elizabeth J., "Those who marched. Lystra E. Gretter, RN (1858-1951)", (2004), pp. 8-9.

Munson, Helen W., "Lystra E. Gretter" The American Journal of Nursing, (1949), v. 49, issue 6, pp. 344-48.

"Lystra Gretter," (2004), Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.

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Nursing pioneer biography: Lystra Gretter

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Lystra Eggert Gretter Public Health Advocate and Professional Reformer 1858-1951 By David Yates When Lystra Eggert Gretter was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2004, she was honored for her "tireless" efforts in promoting nursing as a respectable profession in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Nursing history has shaped the way we view the profession today. Our new online exhibition explores the popular myths that still hold great sway over the image of nursing, from Florence Nightingale and Charles Dickens’ slovenly Sairey Gamp to more recent stereotypes.One of the most famous stereotypes is that of the Lady With the Lamp, born 200 years ago. This romanticised image of Florence Nightingale mopping brows and soothing tired soldiers bore little resemblance to her complex work as a manager and statistician.Two hundred years on from Nightingale’s birth, we're facing new challenges. What has the COVID-19 pandemic taught us about how we value nurses? And how do these historical stereotypes continue to shape views of the profession?

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Nursing history has shaped the way we view the profession today. Our new online exhibition explores the popular myths that still hold great sway over the image of nursing, from Florence Nightingale and Charles Dickens’ slovenly Sairey Gamp to more recent stereotypes.One of the most famous stereotypes is that of the Lady With the Lamp, born 200 years ago. This romanticised image of Florence Nightingale mopping brows and soothing tired soldiers bore little resemblance to her complex work as a manager and statistician.Two hundred years on from Nightingale’s birth, we're facing new challenges. What has the COVID-19 pandemic taught us about how we value nurses? And how do these historical stereotypes continue to shape views of the profession?

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History has shaped the way we view nursing today

Many of us are familiar with Charles Dickens' sloppy Sarah Gamp, Hattie Jacques' no-nonsense matron in the Carry On films, or even the sexy nurse fancy dress costume still popular today. Nursing stereotypes are wide spread and varied.

Bad press around drunken, slovenly nursing in the nineteenth century prompted efforts to clean up the profession. Florence Nightingale forged a very different image of order, professionalism and discipline.

Following two World Wars and big shifts in nursing roles and responsibilities, the profession today is incredibly diverse.

Two hundred years on from Nightingale's birth, we're facing new challenges. What has the COVID-19 pandemic taught us about how we value nurses? How do these historical stereotypes continue to shape views of the profession?

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The many-faced myths of nursing | Royal College of Nursing

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Many of us are familiar with Charles Dickens' sloppy Sarah Gamp, Hattie Jacques' no-nonsense matron in the Carry On films, or even the sexy nurse fancy dress costume still popular today. Nursing stereotypes are wide spread and varied. Bad press around drunken, slovenly nursing in the nineteenth century prompted efforts to clean up the profession.

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Pioneers of Nursing

Founder of the modern nursing profession

Battlefield nurse. Founder of the American Red Cross.

Founded the Frontier Nursing Service--bringing midwifery and infant health care to rural areas.

Early nursing pioneer who revolutionized health care for the mentally ill.

Promoted nursing as a respectable profession, shifted the model of nursing education from a one-year apprenticeship to a three-year academic pursuit, created nurse-run hospital wards, cut the work day to 8-hour shifts, wrote the first standardized textbook for nursing education, established an early visiting nurses association and created one of the first professional nursing libraries.

Pioneer in nursing autonomy and nurse-driven care.

Pioneer in improving the care of dying patients by managing symptoms, including patient and family in all decisions, and maintaining dignity and the highest quality of life as the developmental task of saying good-bye was addressed.

Also see:

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Pioneers of Nursing Founder of the modern nursing profession Battlefield nurse. Founder of the American Red Cross. Founded the Frontier Nursing Service--bringing midwifery and infant health care to rural areas. Early nursing pioneer who revolutionized health care for the mentally ill.

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There are so many ways to work in nursing and midwifery in 2020. We’ll be gathering people stories across the year, to show as wide a cross section of England’s nurses and midwives as we can. Please share yours here, and please spread the word by asking other nurses and midwives  that you meet to do the same.

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There are so many ways to work in nursing and midwifery in 2020. We'll be gathering people stories across the year, to show as wide a cross section of England's nurses and midwives as we can. Please share yours here, and please spread the word by asking other nurses and midwives that you meet to do the same.
" Download a template to share your story
Our nursing and midwifery people

These profiles put a face to the myriad specialties, regions and locations it's possible to work in, as a nurse or midwife in 2020.

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There are so many ways to work in nursing and midwifery in 2020. We'll be gathering people stories across the year, to show as wide a cross section of England's nurses and midwives as we can. Please share yours here, and please spread the word by asking other nurses and midwives that you meet to do the same.

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Created by Johnson and Johnson (2018)

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International Year of the Nurse and Midwife 2020 

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International Year of the Nurse and Midwife 2020 

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This is our time: 2020 is the Year of the Nurse and Midwife.2020 is Florence Nightingale’s bicentennial year, designated by World Health Organisation as the first ever global Year of the Nurse and Midwife. Nurses and midwives make up the largest numbers of the NHS workforce. They are highly skilled, multi-faceted professionals from a host of backgrounds that represent our diverse communities. 2020 is our time to reflect on these skills, the commitment and expert clinical care they bring, and the impact they make on the lives of so many. This year is also an opportunity to say thank you to the professions; to showcase their diverse talents and expertise; and to promote nursing and midwifery as careers with a great deal to offer.

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"In 2020, the spotlight is on us: nurses and midwives are being celebrated not just in England but across the globe. This is the chance to highlight our vast and varied skills and the work we do, and to ensure our professional voice is heard and represented at the heart of all health and care decisions and policy."
Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England

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NHS England " International year of the Nurse and Midwife 2020

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"In 2020, the spotlight is on us: nurses and midwives are being celebrated not just in England but across the globe. This is the chance to highlight our vast and varied skills and the work we do, and to ensure our professional voice is heard and represented at the heart of all health and care decisions and policy."

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Mary Seacole Trust, Life, Work & Achievements of Mary Seacole

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Mary Seacole Trust, Life, Work & Achievements of Mary Seacole

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Mary Seacole Trust, Life, Work & Achievements of Mary Seacole

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We promote Mary Seacole as a role model, in support of people committed to tackling social challenges or inequality. We encourage young people to follow her example of good citizenship & achievement.

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Mary helped sick and injured soldiers in many lands. Find out more with BBC Bitesize KS1 History.

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BLACK HISTORY

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She got herself out to the war by her own efforts and at her own expense; risked her life to bring comfort to the wounded and dying soldiers; and became the first black woman to make her mark on British public life. But while Florence Nightingale has gone down in history and become a legend, Mary Seacole was relegated to obscurity until recently.

Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a Scottish soldier, and her mother was a practitioner of traditional Jamaican medicine and had a boarding house where she cared for invalid soldiers and their wives. Mary learned about medicine from her mother, soon gaining her own reputation as a 'skilful nurse and doctress'.

Mary travelled widely - there were two trips to Britain, and in 1851, she joined her brother Edward in Panama, where she opened a hotel. Soon she had saved her first cholera patient, and gained extensive knowledge of the pathology of this disease - which she herself contracted and recovered from. She was widely praised for her work in treating cholera, and returned to Jamaica in 1853, where there was a yellow fever epidemic.

The medical authorities came to her to provide nurses to care for the sick soldiers. She travelled again to London, where she heard about the Crimean war and how the nursing system there had collapsed. She mad applications to the War Office, the army medical department, and the secretary of war to be allowed to go to the Crimea and tend to the sick and wounded. She pointed out that she had extensive experience, excellent references and knew many of the soldiers and regiments, having nursed them while they were stationed in Jamaica.

But she was turned away by everybody, including one of Florence Nightingale's assistants. Was it possible, she asked herself, 'that American prejudices against colour had taken root here? Did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat duskier skin than theirs?' in her disappointment, Mary cried in the street.

A distant relative of hers, called Day, was going to Balaclava on business, and they agreed to launch a firm called Seacole and Day, which would be a general store and hotel near the British camp in the Crimea. So, at the age of 50, with her large stock of medicines, Mary went to the battle zone as a sutler - a person who follows the army and sells provisions to the troops. The moment she arrived in Balaclava there were sick and wounded to attend to. She opened her British Hotel in the summer of 1855, near the besieged city of Sevastopol. Soon the entire British army knew of 'Mother Seacole's'. The soldiers were her sons and she was their mother.

Though some of the army doctors, despite her saving them a lot of work, regarded her as a 'quack', others were less bigoted. The assistant surgeon of the 90th Light Infantry watched with admiration as she, numb with cold would administer to the soldiers, giving them tea and food and words of comfort. She was often on the front line and frequently under fire.

It was W.H. Russell, the first modern war correspondent, who made Mary Seacole famous. He described her as 'a warm and successful physician, who doctors and cures all manner of men with extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near the battle field to aid the wounded, and has earned many a poor fellow's blessings'.

She was, as she had promised herself, the first woman to enter Sevastopol when it fell. But the end of the war left Seacole and Day with expensive and unsaleable stores on their hands. They went bankrupt, and Mary returned to England a financially ruined woman. The Times demanded how could anyone forget the amazing things that Mary had done, and praise only Florence Nightingale?

Lord Rokeby and Lord Paget, both Crimean commanders organised a benefit festival at the Royal Surrey Gardens in Kennington to raise money for Mary. There were over 1,000 performers, and her name was 'shouted by a thousand voices'. In 1857, Mary published her autobiography, an outstandingly vivid piece of writing called The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in many lands which was prefaced by WH Russell: 'I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead'.

England, of course did forget Mary Seacole. She was awarded a Crimean medal, and a bust was made of her by Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, sculptor and nephew of Queen Victoria. The last 25 years of her life, however, were spent in obscurity. When she died on 14th May 1881.

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She got herself out to the war by her own efforts and at her own expense; risked her life to bring comfort to the wounded and dying soldiers; and became the first black woman to make her mark on British public life.

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We support nurses and midwives to improve care and save lives Academy Explore the leadership development opportunities and support offered by FNF Find Out More Membership Join our inclusive community to support your teams to connect, learn, and influence Find Out More Support Us Help us to support nurses and midwives to improve care and [...]

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Florence Nightingale: Saving lives with statistics

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Florence Nightingale: Saving lives with statistics

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BBC

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Florence Nightingale: Saving lives with statistics

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Florence Nightingale was so much more than a lady with a lamp. Discover how she fought to improve civilian and army healthcare throughout her life.

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The bicentenary of Florence Nightingale's birth is being marked with two virtual exhibitions.

Both exhibitions, by Derby Museums and the University of Nottingham, have moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Derby one includes an audio discussion of The Mission of Mercy, which is on loan from the National Portrait Gallery.

The Nottingham one includes a virtual tour of her family home in Derbyshire.

Both exhibitions explore her role as a founder of modern nursing, and her 200th birthday coincides with International Nurses Day.

Professor Paul Crawford, one of the people behind the Nottingham exhibition, is a registered nurse himself and has been inspired by her.

"You don't become a nurse without being aware of Florence Nightingale," he said.

"While I was training nurses here at hospitals in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, I also met a colleague who was very interested in her Derbyshire roots and that began to make me realise her contribution.

"I think it's time more was made of her early life in Derbyshire, which is why we began work on the exhibition. The ethos of Nightingale and what she did is very relevant today."

Florence Nightingale came from a wealthy family who had a home at Lea Hurst near Matlock.

Tony Butler, executive director of Derby Museums, said she is an "inspirational figure of global importance".

"On this important anniversary we are proud to celebrate one of our best-known local heroines with our communities," he said.

"Although our museums are not yet open to the public, this specially-curated content will enable people to discover more about Florence from home until they can visit the exhibition in person when lockdown restrictions are lifted."

Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

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The bicentenary of Florence Nightingale's birth is being marked with two virtual exhibitions. Both exhibitions, by Derby Museums and the University of Nottingham, have moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Derby one includes an audio discussion of The Mission of Mercy, which is on loan from the National Portrait Gallery.

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Edith Cavell: nurse, martyr, and spy?(2015)

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Edith Cavell: nurse, martyr, and spy?(2015)

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100 years ago today Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad for smuggling Allied soldiers out of occupied Belgium. Vanessa Heggie explains how a nurse became a spy

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At dawn on 12 October 1915 the British nurse Edith Cavell was killed by a firing squad, after a German military courtfound her guilty of helping Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. It was strongly implied that she was also involved in espionage, passing information about German military movements and plans back to the UK. The British Government denied that she was a spy, but recently the ex-head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, has revealed new evidence that strongly suggests Cavell was involved in smuggling information as well as men.

However much Cavell knew about the information being carried on the bodies of the men she saved - written on cloth and sewn into clothes, or hidden in shoes - her death made her a popular martyr, as her execution provoked a strong public reaction of horror. Author Arthur Conan Doyle said:

So how did a nurse become involved in espionage?

For queen and country?

Edith Cavell went to Brussels in 1907 to nurse a sick child, but ended up running the first secular training school for nurses in Belgium. She had already spent five years working in Belgium as a governess, between 1890 and 1895, and had connections in the country; her invite came from Dr Antoine Depage, a surgeon to the Royal Family and the founder of the Belgian Red Cross.

Nursing in Belgium was almost entirely done by nuns, and so Depage suggested that Cavell should use her experience of the UK system of nurse training to start a new school. L'école belge d'infirmières diplômées opened in October 1907, although Cavell noted that the Belgians were anxious about the 'respectability' of young women training for paid work - an anxiety the British had also felt about middle-class women becoming wage-earners. Luckily for the school, the Belgian Queen Consort, Elisabeth of Bavaria, broke her arm in 1912 and hired a nurse from Cavell's school, boosting the reputation of the training institute.

Cavell did not have any direct experience of running a nurse training school, but she had - by accident - ended up in a related position in her previous job, working as Matron for the Manchester and Salford Sick Poor and Private Nursing Institute. Cavell was hired in 1906 as a nurse at the Queen's Institute nurses' home in Salford, which had been built - at a cost of around £10,000 - using money from a fund created to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The matron of this institution became sick and Cavell was promoted in 1907, although she found the work hard, especially as she was not familiar with the work of District Nurses, her experience being almost entirely in hospital and private nursing.

Sensational commemorative prints - including postcards and stamps - were produced after Cavell's death. They nearly all show her in an idealised way, wearing the nursing uniform associated with the red cross. Photograph: Wellcome Library, London

For the sick poor (and private patients)?

The Manchester Sick Poor and Private Nursing Institute was founded in 1864, when 20 women aged between 25 and 35 from the local area were sent to train in London, thanks to a grant from the Nightingale Fund. This was a public-private collaboration, as some trained nurses were sent to local hospitals, others became district nurses working for free amongst the poor, and the institute made money through a third set of nurses who offered private in-home care to paying patients. The private nurses lived together in houses, funded by a form of charitable sponsorship (which also paid for their food, and for drugs, including 'medicinal alcohol' used by the District Nurses).

It's not surprising that the work of the District Nurses was unfamiliar to Cavell; their remit was extremely broad - they were expected to teach people the 'simple rules of health', provide domestic support by cleaning and tidying houses, washing and feeding children, as well as changing wound dressings and providing medical interventions - they were expected to 'nurse the room' as well as the patient. In 1881 nurses were provided with satchels that had special pockets built in, for the transportation of chops to the poor, which the nurse would cook for the patient's family if she thought they lacked the necessary skills.

When the Manchester organisation affiliated to the Queen's Jubilee Nursing Institute it increased the training of nurses from about one year to three years of lectures and experience in hospitals and dispensaries ( dispensaries were institutions, usually charitable, offering medical advice, drugs and sometimes minor surgical interventions). It also decided that District Nurses ought to live together, like the private nurses, instead of renting in the communities they served. Cavell's job as matron made her the head of one of these homes for District Nurses - in charge of their daily activities, general discipline, but also, presumably, involved in organising training and screening new applicants.

For king and country?

Although Cavell had been in supervisory positions before, these had been at hospitals (St Pancras - a hospital for the poor and often chronically sick - and at Shoreditch Infirmary). Her new job in Belgium required a broader set of skills, epitomised by the triple work of established British organisations like the Sick Poor and Private Nursing Institute. The Belgian training institute sent many nurses into hospital work, but also provided nurses for schools and kindergartens; the diploma in nursing that Cavell developed took five years of study and work, and in 1910 she even began editing a medical journal called l'infirmière ('nurse').

Cavell was in England when the Germans invaded Belgium, and she returned to Brussels where her clinic was converted into a Red Cross Hospital, treating wounded soldiers from both sides of the conflict. It also, however, acted as a smuggling route for the repatriation of Allied soldiers and the rescue of Belgian collaborators, and Cavell was arrested in August 1915 for her role in this work. She readily confessed to 'successfully conduct[ing] allied soldiers to the enemy of the German people', and it was on these grounds that she was sentenced to death by firing squad on 6 October.

As well as becoming a popular martyr, Cavell is recognised by the Church of England with a memorial day (12 October) in the Calendar of Saints. Although her big contribution to Belgian health care was to provide secular nurse training, replacing nuns, Cavell herself always appeared to have been an extremely pious Christian, allegedly forgiving her executioners. What she would have thought of becoming a national hero, and grist to a mill that condemned the Germans as barbaric, is less clear:

There are many memorial and celebration events taking place for Cavell this year. Anyone near Leeds can get a sense of her impact on popular culture by going to a screening of the 1928 silent movie about her life, 'Dawn', taking place on 24 October. You can tweet your event details to @HPS_Vanessa, or leave a comment below.

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Edith Cavell: nurse, martyr, and spy? | Vanessa Heggie

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At dawn on 12 October 1915 the British nurse Edith Cavell was killed by a firing squad, after a German military courtfound her guilty of helping Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. It was strongly implied that she was also involved in espionage, passing information about German military movements and plans back to the UK.

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Edith Cavell was a famous nurse who helped soldiers from all sides during World War One. Find out more in this Bitesize Primary KS2 History guide.

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10 things you didn’t know about Edith Cavell, nurses & Mary Lindell

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10 things you didn’t know about Edith Cavell, nurses & Mary Lindell

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The History Press

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English nurse Edith Cavell has gone down in history for saving soldiers on both sides of the fence and helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German -occupied Belgium during World War I. On 12 October 1915, Edith was murdered by firing squad after being arrested and accused of treason. Peter Hore uncovers some little known facts about this heroine, nurses and Mary Lindell, who was inspired by Edith Cavell.

1. The nursing profession

The nursing profession was only a generation or two old when the First World War broke out. Until then nursing was dominated by nuns, who had little training, or by 'dressers' who often had no training. Britain led the way in proper training for nurses, and for many women nursing was their first taste of women's liberation. Edith Cavell became part of an international movement to improve the standards of nursing when she was recruited as matron of a nursing school at Ixelles in Brussels in 1907 - the same year that the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry was founded in Britain.

2. Age limit on nurses serving overseas

After 1914 there was a rapid increase in the demand for nurses, with the British and French Red Cross leading the way. But there were many other nursing movements including the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), which Mary Lindell joined. The age limit for service overseas was 23 years, but Mary wanted to do more and by going to France she was able to join the Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires when only aged 19. Before she was 23, Mary was practising as an anaesthetist in a French field hospital close to the front line. She was in northern France when she heard of the murder of Edith Cavell.

3. Edith Cavell in the newspapers

At the start of the war, Edith had nursed Allied wounded, but when Belgium was overrun by the Germans she nursed Germans too. In defiance of German martial law, Edith began to shelter wounded British and French soldiers who had evaded capture, and young Belgians of military age. She joined the Belgian Resistance and helped these men escape into neutral Holland. Edith was arrested in August 1915 and, within a very short space of time, was court martialed and sentenced to death. Despite an international outcry which included strong representations by the neutral US government, she was executed by firing squad on 12 October 1915. One newspaper, describing it as 'foul murder', said, 'the hearts of the nation will be stirred to the depths at this brave woman's martyrdom at the hands of the arch-Hun who has fouled Europe with blood'. The same newspaper recorded that 'a service at St Paul's cathedral in memory of the martyred nurse Edith Cavell was one of the most striking and impressive tributes that the nation has ever paid within the walls of the national sanctuary'.

4. State funeral

The death of a woman under such circumstances caused a wave of revulsion throughout the civilised world. Besides the memorial service in St Paul's, Edith Cavell was the first female commoner to be given a state funeral at Westminster Abbey, an honour she shares with Princess Diana and ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

5. Railway Van No. 132

The bodies of Edith Cavell, Captain Charles Fryatt and of the Unknown Warrior, were each brought to London in the same railway van, No. 132, which is now preserved by the Kent and East Sussex Railway.

6. An English Saint?

There are dozens of memorials to Edith Cavell - in Belgium, in France and throughout the English-speaking world including hospitals and schools and there is even a mountain named after her! Edith's life is also celebrated in music, from a Catholic mass to recent folk music. The Church of England, which does not make saints, created the unusual honour of an Edith Cavell Day, 12 October, which she shares with the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (d. 1845) and the missionary Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon (d. 709).

7. Films about Edith Cavell

A short Belgian film of her funeral in 1915 achieved worldwide distribution, and a silent movie was made in Australia in 1916 about her. The Woman the Germans Shot was a 1918 American silent movie based on the life and career of Nurse Edith Cavell.

Herbert Wilcox made two films about Edith Cavell. The first was Dawn, a 1928 silent movie which starred one of the leading actresses of her day, Sybil Thorndike, as Edith. It became one of the most controversial British films of the 1920s: pressure was exerted by the German ambassador in London and the British Foreign Secretary to prevent the film being passed for exhibition and it was censored because of its 'brutal depiction' of warfare and anti-German sentiments.

Wilcox returned to the subject in 1939, this time in a 'talkie', Nurse Edith Cavell, with the beautiful Anna Neagle as the protagonist and made in association with RKO Radio Pictures in the USA. This highly-acclaimed film was nominated at the 1939 Oscars for Best Original Score, and its release in America and in Europe on the eve of the Second War World had a significant impact on audiences.

8. The image of Edith Cavell was strong - even among men

In October 1940, two stragglers from the British army's defeat at St Valery-en-Caux in Normandy reached Paris. They were Captain D. B. Lang, Adjutant 4th Battalion, Queens Own Cameron Highlanders, 51st (Highland) Division and Second Lieutenant John Buckingham. They sought help at the American embassy but were told that they 'could no longer help us, financially or otherwise. The Germans were tightening things up and they [the Americans] dare not run any risks'. Lang went away 'almost in despair ... but returned the next day in the hopes of something'. Lang was lucky and he was introduced to Kitty Bonnefous, who, along with Etta Shiber was running an escape-line and who he reported 'was very willing to help us, she was another Edith Cavell who would stop at nothing to help the British reach unoccupied France'.

9. Scotland's own Edith Cavell

Mary-Helen Young trained as a nurse in London and worked in a hospital in France during the First World War. She became a private nurse and was in Paris when the Germans took the city. As a Briton, she was interned during the general round-up of aliens in 1940 but released about six months later, presumably on grounds of her age (she was nearly 60). In the interwar years, Mary-Helen had visited her hometown in Scotland, the last time being for three months in 1938, and now she had an opportunity to leave France altogether. However, for whatever reason, she never applied for the necessary exit papers. She did send cryptic postcards to her sister in Scotland. One dated November 1943 simply read, 'From Marie-Hélène who is well and sends her love'. This card was probably sent when she was already under arrest for a second time, accused of helping downed airman to evade capture by the Germans. Mary-Helen died in the notorious Jugendlager at Ravensbrück sometime in early 1945. After the Second World War the Aberdeen Press and Journal learned that Mary-Helen had 'died as she lived, a brave Scotswoman'. The newspaper proudly acclaimed her as Scotland's very own Edith Cavell - 'Right up to the very end nothing could break her. She would smile, even in this hell that the Germans had made for us, she was a brave woman, the bravest of the brave'.

10. Edith Cavell and Mary Lindell

Edith's hospital in Brussels had been overrun by the Germans in the First World War, when Mary was a 20-year old nurse at a French Red Cross hospital in northern France. Mary's Paris fell under German occupation in 1940 when Mary was nearly the same age as Edith had been when she was executed. Mary - whose girlhood memory of Edith's martyrdom was reinforced by the release of Wilcox's 1939 film - frequently summoned the image of the martyred nurse. When setting up her escape-line Mary claimed: 'What gave me the idea that something was to be done was what Edith Cavell had done in the last war, was necessary and had to be done in this war. Who? There was nobody in Paris, or nobody who could do it, so I said there you are, darling, you are to do it'.
By Peter Hore
You might also be interested in:

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The History Press | 10 things you didn't know about Edith Cavell, nurses & Mary Lindell

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English nurse Edith Cavell has gone down in history for saving soldiers on both sides of the fence and helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German -occupied Belgium during World War I. On 12 October 1915, Edith was murdered by firing squad after being arrested and accused of treason.

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Website

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Welcome to edithcavell.org.uk, commemorating Edith Cavell, the World War I British nurse who is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers in Brussels from all sides without distinction. She and Belgian and French colleagues helped over 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium.

She was arrested, tried with 33 others by a German military court, found guilty of 'assisting men to the enemy' and shot by a German firing squad on October 12 1915.

This is one of the most extensive sites dedicated to Nurse Edith Cavell, and contains much exclusive material. Please explore the site using the menus at the top of each page.

Edith Cavell memorabilia archive

A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has allowed us to create a database of all the materials we hold in Swardeston on Edith Cavell. See this in due course here.

Comments, questions, or suggestions for the site? Do please contact us.

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Welcome to edithcavell.org.uk, commemorating Edith Cavell, the World War I British nurse who is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers in Brussels from all sides without distinction. She and Belgian and French colleagues helped over 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested, tried with 33 others by a German military court,...