Marital Status

Context

This data field showed the honorific applied to any particular nurse where known. Marital Status was then implied from the honorific. At this time the terms Mrs and Miss were almost exclusively used to denote a married or widowed woman (Mrs) or an unmarried woman (Miss). Although the term Ms had been discussed in the press at this time it was not yet much in use. The term Lady and lady had started to become ambiguous. Lady was correctly the honorific for a woman married to a Lord or who by birth was entitled to use this honorific. It was considered polite to speak about ladies (and gentlemen) when referring to people with a certain social status. Treves when writing about the “ladies” who travelled to South Africa, and who caused considerable problems in the hospitals, was using the term in this polite form rather than as an honorific.

In the medal rolls there was little use of any honorific. Nurses were either listed by name alone or were accorded a professional title (Nurse, Nursing Sister etc.). Those given the honorific Lady were those entitled to use this by birth or marriage. In the period under review in the prosopography, married women were expected to stay at home and look after the household. It could be anticipated then that the majority of the nurses travelling to South Africa would have been single.

Data Sources

The sources used to populate this data field included the medal rolls (where Mrs appeared in comments or margin notes), census records, and family records. The information from family records was often the most useful in this regard. Access to family information often became available because of the public nature of the prosopography and people’s desire to exchange information. The support for the honorific recorded in the prosopography was strong, but for the majority of the nurses the correct honorific remained unknown. Marital status could only be implied for some of the nurses whereas for others it was known either from the census or family records.

Data

The marital status was known for 582 (30%) of the nurses in the dataset (see below). The status was corroborated for the majority of the 582.

• Miss 564 (29%)
• Mrs 18 (1%)
• Not Known 1398 (70%)

Discussion

From what was known of nurses in this period (see previous pages), and the fact that married nurses were shown on the medal rolls by comments or margin notes, it was assumed that the majority of those whose status was unknown were not married. There were also a number of religious sisters in the prosopography who were also likely to be unmarried (in the legal not the spiritual sense). The proportion of married to single women was strikingly different to that of the nurses in the Crimea. From the register of nurses held at The Florence Nightingale Museum it was possible to create the dataset below:

• Miss 43 (20%)
• Mrs 113 (53%)
• Sister 8 (4%)
• Not Known 50 (23%)

Some of those shown in this second table as having no marital status were Sisters who were listed with their given name, rather than that adopted when joining their Order. There was a clear difference in the marital status ratios of nurses in the Boer War and in some respects this may have tied in with the (relatively) young age of the Boer War nursing cohort. Since the number of married women serving as nurses in the Boer War was very small it was interesting to look at this small group in some detail.

Lady Theodosia Bagot RRC

Lady Bagot was married to Josceline Fitzroy Bagot who served in the Boer War as Chief Military Censor. She was responsible for the establishment of the Portland Hospital and was given permission by Lord Roberts to accompany it to South Africa.

Lady Beatrice Chesham RRC

Lady Chesham together with Lady Curzon was instrumental in raising the funds and the establishment of the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital. When it was time to set up the hospital in South Africa it was decided that Lady Chesham would go out and supervise it. Lady Chesham’s husband (Major-General (Imperial Yeomanry) Charles Compton William Cavendish, 3rd Baron Chesham) and son (Lieutenant The Honourable Charles William Hugh Cavendish, 17th Lancers - who was killed in action on the 11th June, 1900) were already serving in South Africa. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her services to nursing in 1901.

Mrs Kate Clayton

The Nursing Record and Hospital World gave an account of Mrs Kate Clayton after she died. Mrs Clayton (neé Collins) trained for two years at the General Hospital, Cheltenham (1880-1882) and subsequently obtained a three year certificate at the Salop Infirmary, Shrewsbury. Her appointment as Home Sister at the St Helena Home brought her to London, where she worked until 1895. After obtaining a certificate in maternity nursing at the York Road Lying-In Hospital, and in massage at the National Hospital, she did private nursing in England and New Zealand.

At the time of the Boer War she was working in St Michael’s Home in Kimberley. It was not known whether she accompanied her husband to South Africa. She was taken on as a locally employed nurse and worked at No. 10 General Hospital at Norvals Point and died on the 6th June, 1900 after helping to care for those involved in the outbreak of enteric fever at Bloemfontein.

Mrs Theodosia Agnes Cobbold

Mrs Cobbold (neé Sinclair) who was the great granddaughter of Lord Chief Justice Denman, trained at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. On the 1891 census she was listed as a Lady Nurse on the Isle of Wight. She married Charles Augustus Cobbold in Ontario, Canada. She volunteered for service with the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital and when accepted was taken into the Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service (Reserve). She served with the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Deelfontein . Her husband - Charles Augusts Cobbold served in WW1 with the Suffolk Regiment and died at Loos in 1915. It was not known if he served in South Africa.

Lady Sophie Catherine Gifford

Lady Gifford was involved in the nursing care of the sick and wounded during the siege of Kimberley and was already in South Africa at the start of the Boer War. Her husband, Lord Edric Frederick Gifford, 3rd Baron, was a director of the British South Africa Company. She subsequently also assisted at No. 17 Stationary Hospital in Middleburg. After the war she continued her interest in the welfare of the sick and wounded. Princess Louise's convalescent home for nursing sisters was opened at Hardelot in 1914 by Lady Gifford under the British Red Cross Society, and transferred to Cannes in 1917 as a winter home for the sisters.

Mrs Jane Ann Gray

Mrs Gray joined the Army Nursing Service in 1884 and was a Superintendent by the start of the Boer War. She was typical of the problems faced researching individual nurses. She appeared on the 1900 Army List as Gray, Mrs JA and with a seniority of 1884. The same entry also appeared on the 1901 and 1902 Lists. In 1901 a Jane Ann Gray appeared on the census for the Herbert Hospital, Woolwich (one of the military hospital in England). In this document she was given as Nursing Sister Army Nursing Service Reserve and a birthplace and birthdate of 1873 in Liverpool. If these were the same people she would have joined the army as a nurse aged 11, so it was likely that there were two women of the same name serving at the same time.

Mrs KA Gray

Mrs KA Gray was shown as a locally employed nurse in the medal roll for Cape Town. She was annotated as formerly Miss Rathay.

Mrs Beatrice Elizabeth Guillemard

Mrs Guillemard, a resident of Aliwal North, Cape Colony opened a hospital on March 11, 1900 and nursed the wounded as well as providing food for them for some three weeks until Hospital Orderlies arrived. This ultimately became a large hospital (24 Stationary Hospital) and was used for a great number of imperial and colonial troops.

Mrs Hyslop and Mrs Speed

Mrs Hyslop and Mrs Speed had a QSA Medal specially granted for their services in connection with hospital work in Northern Natal.

Mrs Elizabeth Kelso-Hamilton

Mrs Elizabeth Kelso-Hamilton trained at the London Hospital. She volunteered for service with Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service (Reserve) on the 18th December, 1899 and was recorded on the QSA Medal Roll for No. 8 General Hospital Bloemfontein. Details of her husband are not known.

Mrs Betty Kennedy

Mrs Betty Kennedy from Melbourne, Australia is recorded on the Australian War Memorial site as having served in the Boer War at Escourt Hospital. There was no record of service found in the QSA Medal Rolls.

Mrs Sophie Lees RRC

Mrs Sophie Lees, the wife of a manufacturer, was shown on the roll of nursing staff of Intombi Camp Hospital, Ladysmith during the siege. In the early stages of the siege there were three hospitals in Ladysmith, the Town Hall and two Churches.

It was to these that the wounded of Elandslaagte, Lombards Kop and Rietfontein were cared for until shelling compelled the wounded to be moved to Intombi Camp some three miles distant. She was Mentioned in Despatches (Sir George White's) on the 12th February, 1899, and her QSA Medal was presented by King Edward VII on the 27th July, 1901.

She was awarded the Royal Red Cross, which was gazetted on the 31st October, 1902. On July 22, 1903 Sister Lees was admitted to the British Home and Hospital for Incurables at Streatham on the nomination of Queen Alexandra, after suffering a stroke and she died there on the 15th April, 1907 aged 66 years.

Mrs JD Leather-Culley

Mrs Leather-Culley was not a nurse but took great interest in their welfare. She organised a fund to pay for essential items for the nurses and then took these out to South Africa where she travelled around the hospitals giving out the items she had brought with her. She also spent time with the patients helping them write letters and doing other tasks that she was able to do to release the nurses to carry out the nursing care of the sick and wounded. She wrote about her time in South Africa. Her son served in the Boer War as a Lieutenant with the Coldstream Guards.

Mrs Eugenia Ludlow RRC

Mrs Eugenia Ludlow trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. She was Matron of the Royal Free Hospital, London until her marriage to Major ERO Ludlow, Army Service Corps, and travelled to South Africa with him in August 1899. He was a Staff Officer during the siege of Ladysmith and returned to England wounded in May 1900. Mrs Ludlow was Mentioned in Despatches by Sir George White for service during the Ladysmith siege. When the siege was lifted she volunteered for service in Princess Christian’s Army Nursing Service (Reserve) on the 14th June, 1900. As well as the Ladysmith medal roll, she was noted on the QSA Medal Roll for No. 14 Stationary Hospital at Maritzburg<The National Archives: WO 100/229: p.114</ref>, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross in 1901.

Mrs LJ Mackay

Mrs Mackay was already in the Army Nursing Service at the start of the Boer War having joined in 1886. The Army Lists for 1900, 1901 and 1902 showed her as a Superintendent. She had not been found on any of the medal rolls and so may have been serving in a military hospital outside of South Africa.

Mrs MA Makin RRC

Mrs Makin was the daughter of General Vesey Kirkland, and widow of Major-General B. Fellowes. As Miss Kirkland she had accompanied her father wherever he was engaged in military service; as Mrs Fellowes she had travelled with her first husband to South Africa, the West Indies, and Ireland. When he died in 1879 she had entered the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas's Hospital and, after a short training, was selected by Florence Nightingale to accompany Sir Frederick Roberts' force to the Transvaal in February 1881. On her return to England she was appointed sister-in-charge of Leopold ward at St Thomas's Hospital, and in 1882 she was seconded for service in the Egyptian war. She again had returned to St Thomas's Hospital, and in 1884 was amongst the first to receive from Queen Victoria the decoration of the Royal Red Cross. She accompanied her second husband, G. H. Makins, a well known civil surgeon, to the Boer War in 1899.

Lady Maud Mary O’Hagan

Lady O'Hagan, with the approval of Lord Roberts and of Surgeon-General Wilson, established a cottage hospital, equipped and maintained at her own expense, at Naaupoort, Cape Colony, from the 25th July, 1900 until June 1901, and assisted by Miss Thomas received and cared for sick and wounded officers. Her hospital was at first the only accommodation for officers. It was under the medical superintendence of the Officer Commanding No.6 General Hospital who granted Lady O'Hagan the honorary title of Lady Superintendent.

Discussion

Although for some of these women little of substance is known it can be seen that the others fall into two main groups. Some of these women were already in South Africa with their husbands and offered their services when war came. Others had a connection to serving officers and offered their services either to gain passage to South Africa, or as a result of travelling to South Africa. Some were nurses, some offered nursing care and others their management skills and their financial backing.