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Author: Amy Edwards

Dr Janet Hargreaves: ‘This is Arnside 62, Nurse Kerr speaking’: Bringing community nursing to rural Westmorland 1917 – 1948

Start Date: 1 May 2024 4:00 pm

End Date: 1 May 2024 5:00 pm

Location: CRV016 (the Music Room), Wheeler Building

Dr Janet Hargreaves is a retired nurse lecturer with a continuing interest in nursing history. She has researched nurse education in the 1940s and 50s, nursing in conflict in Ireland in the early 19th century and in more recent years through oral histories with Médecins Sans Frontières nurses. Having retired to the small Cumbrian village of Arnside, she was intrigued to find detailed archives of the Arnside & District Nursing Association – which is the origins of this talk.  

Rural South Cumbria is characterised by numerous small villages and hamlets, separated by salt marshes, woods and limestone crags, leading to limited road and rail infrastructures. Whilst community nursing was available in cities from at least 1850, bringing nursing [and midwifery] to the widely dispersed inhabitants of the area was expensive and required a high degree of ingenuity and local voluntary effort.

This presentation uses the records of the old county-wide [Westmorland] and local [Arnside & District] Nursing Association minutes, along with other archival records and published histories to tell the story of the challenges faced to bring a full-time resident village nurse to Arnside. One Nurse: Mary Kerr, held the post of village nurse from 1937 -1945. Exploring her life as the village nurse brings the origins and spirit of the role, and its place in the development of community nursing, clearly into focus.

This talk will locate the Arnside and District Nursing Association within the wider development of community nursing and use a typical day in the life of Mary Kerr to bring the role to life.

This talk will take place in CRV016 (the Music Room) at the Wheeler Building – all welcome.

Host: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society

Admission is free, but booking encouraged for refreshment and seating purposes. Please contact fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or call 01244 512126 to confirm your place.

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Dr Stuart Wildman: The Workhouse Nurse in the Northwest of England, 1834-1914

Start Date: 6 March 2024 4:00 pm

End Date: 6 March 2024 5:00 pm

Location: CRV016 (the Music Room), Wheeler Building

Dr Stuart Wildman, Honorary Research Fellow, History of Medicine Unit, University of Birmingham

There was little reference to the care of the sick in the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) but workhouses were important institutions as they dealt with almost five times as many sick people than their voluntary hospital counterparts. Caring for the sick and dependent would become more important within the workhouse, with the nurse progressing from lowly servant or pauper to trained and most numerous of employees by the end of the period. This research is based, primarily, on an analysis of Poor Law unions in the Northwest of England (Cheshire and south east Lancashire). This paper illustrates the composition of the nursing workforce, identifies the type of the men and women employed as nurses and shows the changes in the nursing service in the period before World War One. In addition, it explores the nature of nursing practice, the standards of care and the relationships between nurses, their patients, other officers and the guardians of the poor.

Stuart Wildman was a practicing nurse and lecturer. He completed a PhD entitled: Local Nursing Associations in an Age of Nursing Reform, 1860-1900, in 2012. Following retirement, he has taken up an appointment as an Honorary Research Fellow in the History of Medicine Unit at the University of Birmingham. His interests focus on the history of nursing and health care, in particular hospital and home nursing, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He has published widely in a variety of journals.

This talk will take place in CRV016 (the Music Room) at the Wheeler Building – all welcome.

Host: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society

Admission is free, but booking encouraged for refreshment and seating purposes. Please contact fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or call 01244 512126 to confirm your place.

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Linda and Stewart Shuttleworth: Clinical Psychology: Origins and Future Directions

Start Date: 7 February 2024 4:00 pm

End Date: 7 February 2024 5:00 pm

Location: CRV016 (the Music Room), Wheeler Building

Linda’s first degree in Psychology 1972-1976 was in the fascinating city of Edinburgh, followed by post-grad training 1976-1978 in Clinical Psychology at Liverpool University and Mersey Region. Then a bit of a diversion for two years, which was spent in Kenya as a VSO science teacher, a life-changing experience.

She returned to work as an NHS Clinical Psychologist, always in mental health services, and increasingly with people with severe, enduring and complex mental ill health. Stewart and Linda married in 1987, and have two sons, who gracefully endured having two clinical psychologist parents and the inevitable dinner table conversations …

Stewart studied and trained in Bradford and Stirling. His Clinical Psychology career in the NHS initially focused on working with children and young people. After moving to Chester, he embraced additional training, and specialised in Learning Disability. He then worked in and led LD services for adults across Cheshire.

Having discovered the Countess of Chester partnership with Kisiizi Hospital in SW Uganda, Linda looked for a way to involve CWP NHS Trust, to support the mental health work going on there. (And combine her attachment to that part of the world with her clinical skills and family circumstances!)  In 2010 our Director of Nursing, Linda, and one of our Psychiatrists went on a scoping visit to Kisiizi and so joined the endeavour.  Out of that, and from the tragedy of the death in East Africa of Jamie Devaney, came Jamie’s Fund. That small charity now supports 25 Ugandan Hospitals and Health Centres in developing their mental health services.  Stewart and Linda (also a Trustee) support the charity in a voluntary capacity as clinicians and advisors, both here and in Uganda.

Retirement gifts you time to make space for your other interests; art and crafts, the environment and local history among them. We contributed the small display representing the development of Clinical Psychology to the Riverside Museum, and we are now glad to have the opportunity to share with you a little of the scope of Clinical Psychology now, and its origins.

This talk will take place in CRV016 (the Music Room) at the Wheeler Building – all welcome.

Host: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society

Admission is free, but booking encouraged for refreshment and seating purposes. Please contact fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or call 01244 512126 to confirm your place.

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 3 July 2024 1:00 pm

End Date: 3 July 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 22 June 2024 10:00 am

End Date: 22 June 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 5 June 2024 1:00 pm

End Date: 5 June 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 1 May 2024 1:00 pm

End Date: 1 May 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 3 April 2024 1:00 pm

End Date: 3 April 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 6 March 2024 1:00 pm

End Date: 6 March 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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University of Chester Riverside Museum open

Start Date: 7 February 2024 1:00 pm

End Date: 7 February 2024 4:00 pm

Location: Wheeler Building Basement

The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society (FHMS) Historical Society’s Riverside Museum will be open between 1pm and 4pm for students, staff and other visitors.

Based at the University’s Wheeler Building, it contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work, in addition to an original letter written by Florence Nightingale from Balaclava.

The First World War: Returning Home exhibition provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as medical advances, the psychological effects of war, volunteering and volunteer nurses, a doctor’s country practice, home life, working women and social welfare.

Visitors with an interest in health and social care or local and social history are always welcome to visit the Museum and find out more from the volunteers, many of whom have a healthcare background.

There is no need to book for the standard opening times but group bookings for six or more people can be made at other times by prior arrangement. Please contact: fhsc.histsoc@chester.ac.uk or 01244 512126. For the full programme details visit: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/health-and-social-care/historical-society/events-programme

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