Genealogy Chat

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to access registers for district nurses?
I have just recieved the death certificate for my gt.grandmother, Sarah Ann Bartlett, who died in 1948 at the age of 75, in Dunstable. She is described as "Retired District Nurse".
I know that from the 1890's she was nursing in various hospitals around London, and in 1911 at the Isolation Hospital in Ham Green, Bristol. I have contacted the hospital in Bristol but they do not hold records of staff from that far back.
She was known to be living in Dunstable during WW11, having already retired.
Any help or suggestions on how I could find out more would be appreciated

this is good site , you can search by name but also gives an interesting insight into nursing.

http://www.rcn.org.uk/development/rcn_archives

If she was a registered nurse SRN then she would have been registered by the old General Nursing Council (google it) but how much info they would be preapred to give away I don't know. Now it is :

http://www.nmc-uk.org/

Thank you RutlandBelle. I will have a look at both those sites.
I've no idea how young girls came to leave their villages in the late 1800's to start nursing in a city hospital - I suspect as general 'dogsbody' - so it's time I found out.
Again, many thanks.

Lizzylou....

For the time period you are searching there will be no District Nurse Registers per se..
District Nurses pre 1948 were part of the District Nurse Association and as such were employed and paid by the Association...(paid...meaning possibly accomodation and the mandatory "bicycle").These Associations were Community based and families contributed to the DN funding...most of the DNA's were affiliated to the Queens Nursing Institute which has an much older History...
State Registration began in 1919.
She may have been listed in the Dunstable Trade Directory of the time .

This is what the National Archives say regarding District Nurses

District Nurses: History and Records

Training of district nurses was carried out by voluntary organisations, the chief among them being Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute for Nurses, which was granted a Royal charter to become the Queen's Institute of District Nursing (reference HO 45/12900 ). Its functions were to train district nursing associations and to supervise the county and district nursing associations. Record series PRO 30/63 contains a selection of records in respect of these functions, but mainly those in connection with the associations: documents of association and annual reports made by the Institute's inspectors. The records of the associations are largely held in local record offices. The Institute holds its own records and those of its predecessors, with covering dates 1840-1971. These records include various registers of candidates and probationers, 1891-1969; QNI badge registers 1907-1945; and registers of the Protestant Sisters of Charity, one of the early groups interested in the care and cure of the sick, founded in 1840 by Elizabeth Fry as the Institution for Nursing Sisters. Enquiries concerning these records should be sent to the Director, Queen's Institute of District Nursing, 57 Lower Belgrave Street, London SW1.

Lizzylou..

Bedfordshire.gov.uk

The above will take you to their collection and archives...they have many of the Hospital and Nursing Association Records...also a midwifery section which your g.grandmother as a DN would have been part of.
It may be they can help you.

You are right Lizzie, I'd forgotten that. I remember working with DN's and midwives who were very proud of their Queen Victoria Badges. This was back in the 60's and of course they had trained pre NHS. Heard some wonderful stories of nurses and midwives out on motor cycles in the pitch dark, back of beyond, looking for patients in labour. Sometimes getting there to find that mother in law was in charge and had already delivered the baby.

Jennifer

Thank you Eringobragh 1916, RutlandBelle and Annielaurie for your help. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner but 'life' sometimes gets in the way ...I'm sure you know the feeling!
I'm always amazed at the range of information available here from people like yourselves.
My gt.grandmother fascinates me. She left home in the late1880's working in London as an 'assistant' nurse but returned to her home in Wales in 1891 to have her baby. Her parents took her son into their family on the understanding that she went back to work and had no more contact with him. She went on to work in various hospitals that I found through census'.
I knew nothing of this, infact had never heard of her untill an elderly aunt (knowing that I was interested in family history), told me the story. This same aunt - who would have been her grandaughter - had tracked her down in Dunstable during the war. She was apparently welcomed but, on leaving, was told not to visit again as "..it was all in the past". So she had kept her word but how sad that she was estranged from her family and, as far as I am aware, never spoken of.
Again, thanks for your help.

Lizzylou...
If searching for her on the Nurses (SRN) Register (Post 1919) bear in mind she would have been Reg.under her maiden name...(unless of course she never married)...any subsequent records..eg DN would continue to show her maiden name (even if she married) unless she informed the Nursing Council of a change..however it was extremely rare for them to marry and continue nursing.

Lizzylou...Have just remembered about the Wellcome Library..holds most Hospital and Medical Archives amongst other things..
Its situated on Euston Rd and this is their web site..
library.Wellcome.ac.uk.
They have all the info re the QNI and DN associations...**
You can request info from them...
The **Archive ref is SA QNI