Workhouse inmates, a personal story

During our research we came across this story, which is relevant to us and to those researching in deaf history.

In 1901 among the many inmates of Guildford Union Workhouse could be found the Standing family, Priscilla, aged 39 and her three sons, Harry, aged 5, Thomas, aged 4 and Edwin, aged 2.

Priscilla Cinderalla Standing (nee Cooper) 1930's. — Priscilla Cinderalla Standing (nee Cooper) 1930’s. With kind permission of Dorothy Lauder.

Priscilla Cinderalla Cooper was born in Lurgashall, Sussex, the daughter of a farm labourer. The 1881 census tells us that she was deaf, although this is not mentioned when she was at the Workhouse. At the age of 22, she was working as a servant, probably a housemaid, for the Standing family. Thirty eight year old, James Standing and his wife Emma were living in Copse Green, Northchapel, Sussex with their four children. James was Under Bailey for the Petworth Estate. But three years later, his wife Emma died and in 1895 Priscilla married James Standing in Petworth. James moved on to greater responsibility as the Bailiff of a farm in Surrey. By 1899 their third child, Edwin, had been born but James died in the same year.

Edwin Standing c. 1940. With kind permission of Dorothy Lauder.

As a deaf widow with three very young children, Priscilla was probably no longer able to stay in the tied cottage provided by her husband’s work and inevitably ended up in a workhouse. Perhaps she had walked to Guildford to look for housekeeping work. Although the 3 brothers had each other, they were taken from their mother at a very young age and she must have missed them terribly. Priscilla’s stepson, William Standing, was 21 in 1901 when she and her young sons entered the workhouse, so he was able to earn a living as a carman lodging in Angel Gate, Guildford. Her other stepchildren were also old enough to make their own way in the world.

Henry Standing mother Priscilla at Sunny Bank c. 1947. Henry Standing mother Priscilla at Sunny Bank c1947

Priscilla was still living at Guildford Union Workhouse ten years later when the 1911 census was compiled, but her sons had all moved to other accommodation. Edwin, aged 12, now lived at the Scattered Home for Boys at 37 Recreation Road, Guildford, with eleven other boys 5-13 years old and a foster mother appointed by the Guildford Board of Guardians. Thomas, now 14, was still in Warren Road, but in the Children’s Receiving Home where John William Sowers, the Superintendent, was aided by a Matron and two foster mothers in looking after 12 children aged 3 to 15.

Henry (Harry) Standing was now 16, so he had been sent to the Training Ship Exmouth at Grays in Essex. He later married Gertrude Brown and they had eleven grandchildren before he died in Liverpool in 1972. Thomas served in the Army Service Corps in the First World War and in 1923 he married Agnes Smallbone in Hambledon. He died in south west Surrey in 1952.

Standing Priscilla and Friends at Sunset Home at Merrow c. 1947. With kind permission of Dorothy Lauder.

Despite their earlier separation, Priscilla and her sons kept in close contact throughout their lives until her death in Surrey in 1953. She was described by one of her grandchildren as, “a lovely grandmother,” who was able to lip read and communicate well. She spent her last years living happily at the Sunset Home in Merrow House.

– Elizabeth Lloyd

It’s a boy!

It’s a Boy

With urgency a bell rings clear,
The labour ward – a baby’s near.
The pupil feels she needs a friend,
Her hair is standing upon end.
A scream comes through the open door,
Her feet are rooted to the floor.
Sister yells “Don’t stand and stare,
Hurray yourself she’s nearly there,
Where’s your mask you should have brought,
Kindly remember what you’re taught”.
Patient lays all of a shiver
Pupil stands all of a dither,
She thinks “Oh dear” and then “Now what?”
(Deliver the baby of course you clot).
There he is all pink and wet
Could have been caught with a fishing net,
Baby yells with all his might,
Pupil looks a terrible sight.
The third stage now is safely past,
A teapot hoves in sight at last.
The delivery’s gone without a hitch
What’s more – without a single stitch.
Pupil’s feeling rather heady
But her nerves are much more steady.
She feels that with a couple of gins
She now could deal with quads or twins.

MIDWIFERY DEPARTMENT – ST LUKE’S HOSPITAL AND SOCIAL MAGAZINE DECEMBER 1961

Nurse training

In October 1956, the brand new Group Preliminary Training School (PTS) for nurses was opened bringing together student nurses from Haslemere, the Royal Surrey and St. Luke’s. It was a real turning point in training as it was the first group PTS to be formed in the area, if not the entire country! The new building extended from the Nurses’ Home at St. Luke’s Hospital, and all new student nurses lived there for three months. Prior this, student nurses trained in their hospital’s own PTS only.

Student nurses in the classroom

The Group PTS rest room

Student nurses writing a letter home from her bedroom in the PTS.

Anatomy class

If you trained at the group PTS at St. Luke’s Hospital we’d love to hear from you!

Mr Robert McMillan: Physician Superintendent

Mr Robert McMillan was Physician Superintendent and Consultation Physician at St Luke’s Hospital from 1947 until 1968. He was born in Greenock, Scotland in August 1909, the son of James Sharp McMillan, a ship-plater and his wife, Mary Bingham. After graduating in 1929 with a degree in Pure Science, Robert qualified as a doctor in 1939.

During the 1940s Mr McMillan was Assistant Superintendent of the City of Edinburgh Municipal and General Hospitals and also lecturer in tuberculosis at the school of Medicine of the Royal Colleges. During this period of his working life, he submitted three articles on TB and scurvy to the British Medical Journal.

In 1947, Robert McMillan and his wife Janet, whom he had married in Glasgow in 1937, moved to Guildford to take up his new appointment as Superintendent at St Luke’s, where he faced formidable and frustrating administration problems. Administration passed from Surrey County Council to the newly established National Health System and later in 1952 St Luke’s was joined in clinical union with the Royal Surrey Hospital in Farnham Road. It was mooted that a new hospital should be built on the site of St Luke’s and Mr McMillan spent many hours planning this, but it was not to be.

Dr McMillan talking at a fete at St Luke's Hospital — Mr McMillan at a hospital fete in the early 1960’s. In the background (L to R) telephonist Dennis Hann, electrician Des Pettifer and fitter Bill Barrow.

Mr McMillan established the first allergy clinic in the hospital and improved the diabetic services. He developed paediatrics and introduced closer liaison with the social services but his particular interest was in geriatrics. He was the first to establish a geriatric unit in the area and in 1957 a symposium on the care of the elderly was held at Guildford. Speaking at the symposium, Robert said that there was a tendency, “for old people to be lumped together in wards for the chronic sick regardless of the condition from which they were suffering.” He suggested that all students should work for a time in chronic sick wards. He believed there was a case for making, ‘inducement’ payments to Sisters in geriatric wards.

On August 18^th 1966 a fire swept through the main kitchen of the hospital during the day. Surgeons continued with an operation only 15 yards away. Cyril Brooks, the hospital group secretary, reported to the Times that, “Patients in wards nearby watched from windows as hospital staff and passers-by formed a human chain to save records, nurses uniforms and other stores. Then they served the firemen ice-cream and lemonade as they worked in the sweltering heat.” The source of the fire remains a mystery but, at the time, Hospital Group painters were busy stripping the paint off the fascia boards outside the kitchen.

In 1968 when Mr McMillan relinquished his post as physician superintendent, a party was held for him in Coyle Hall. Surrounded by staff he had worked with during his years at St Luke’s, Robert McMillan heard Alderman C. E. Nicklin speak of the doctor’s many achievements including day rooms, the day hospital, Coyle Hall and the Betatron. His interaction with voluntary organisations and his excellent organisational skills were also cited.

Mr Nicklin stated that Mr McMillan had, “changed the atmosphere of the rather grim 19^th century architecture of soul-less institutional appearance. He transformed them into cheerful, light and functionally efficient wards, so that no-one today can pass through St Luke’s without sensing that it is indeed a happy hospital-served by a dedicated team.” The party continued, in Scottish tradition, with the piping in of a haggis and a bouquet of flowers was presented to Mrs McMillan.

Dr McMillan in cap and gown outside St Luke's Hospital — Mr McMillan in cap and gown outside St Luke’s Hospital

Although giving up his administrative duties, Mr McMillan continued to be a consultant. He died in Surrey in 1975.

Article by Elizabeth Lloyd

Twenty-five years at St Luke’s by Matron Brigit Coyle

Bridget Coyle was Matron of St. Luke’s Hospital from 1942 – 1960 . In 1955, Coyle celebrated 25 years at the hospital – here is her account of St. Luke’s from 1930 to 1955.

Matron Brigit Coyle, taken just before retirement

It is a privilege for me to have the opportunity to write about my twenty-five years at St. Luke’s and I call to mind a few of my memories and some of the changes which have taken place during that time.

When, on 18th January, 1930, I came to St. Luke’s as a Ward Sister, it was known as Warren Road Hospital and was under the Guildford Board of Guardians, but in that same year it passed to the control of the Surrey County Council. The staff consisted of 1 Resident Medical Officer, 7 trained nurses and 20 probationers, patients numbering 150.The hospital was at the time recognised as a Preliminary Training School for nurses in affiliation with Lambeth Hospital, London.

WW2 photo of staff in fancy dress. Brigit Coyle back row wearing a turban

In 1932 I was for a time acting Home and Theatre Sister, and in 1933 I became Night Sister. Being the only trained person on night duty, I was responsible for the supervision of the general wards, the deliveries in a 10-bedded maternity ward and the night theatre work. The theatre was then situated in what is now the committee room, and many times I assisted in carrying the patients up and down stairs. On coming off duty in the morning, I would often give a lecture to the nurses, as in those days we had no sister tutor. My off duty was four nights per month all taken together, and I can recall a period of ten weeks when I had to work without any off duty.

In 1934 I was promoted to the post of Assistant Matron with the added duties of day and night theatre sister. In 1935 our first sister tutor was appointed but we had to share her with the Farnham County Hospital and Milford Sanatorium. New construction was now under way and in 1936 the present modern nurses’ home with nurse-teaching department was completed, giving us 72 bedrooms instead of the previous 20; in 1937 the new boiler house, isolation block and observation block were built, and the old laundry converted into a staff dining room.

Matron Coyle and staff at St. Luke's Hospital 1950's. — Matron Coyle and staff at St. Luke’s Hospital 1950’s.

In 1939 the annexe wards and departments were built and equip-ped for the war effort and staffed by the Civil Nursing Reserve, some of whose members joined the permanent staff after the war and are still with us. Everyone worked frantically to get all the windows covered with wire netting and blackout. We were inundated by expectant mothers, evacuated from London, and St. Luke’s House was taken over to accommodate them. Elford was taken over as an ante-natal hostel. The present Out-patients’ department was turned into a first-aid post and decontamination centre.

In 1940, at fifteen hours’ notice, we had to admit 700 casualties from Dunkirk, and every available space in the annexe, main hospital and St. Luke’s House, was packed with beds to meet this crisis. The terrible burns received by some of those boys who had been rescued from a sea of burning oil, and who remained with us for many months, are still a ghastly memory. In this year St. Luke’s became a complete training school for nurses.

Photograph of nurses from 1950 — Prize Giving 1950. Matron Coyle in black on the front row

In 1941 I was seconded as Matron to Woking War Hospital, the Southern Railway Orphanage; but next year Mrs. Guy, our Matron, was forced to retire owing to ill health and I returned from Woking to become Matron of St. Luke’s.

In 1943 a pathological laboratory, staffed by one technician, was started in April and the radiotherapy centre was opened. Pymhurst was purchased and opened to house our preliminary training school nurses. In 1945 the hospital was re-named “St. Luke’s.” The following year we applied to the General Nursing Council for recognition as a male nurse training school: this was granted in the same year and still continues.

In 1947 I was privileged to visit America to attend the International Congress of Nursing as a representative of the Surrey County Council Matrons’ Association. In January 1948, after much hard work, we opened Comeragh Court, Woking, as a home for 30 ambulant T.B. patients, but in July, when control passed to the Ministry of Health, this home went over to the Woking Group. This year the occupational therapy department was opened, and we also became recognised as a Part I midwifery training school.

In 1951 the visitors’ canteen was opened in the patients’ waiting room, and in 1952 the League of Friends of the Guildford Hospitals was formed and has since given us much valuable help. The interchange of student nurses between St. Luke’s and the Royal Surrey County Hospitals commenced in January 1952, and in April we first sent students for a period of training at the Milford Chest Hospital. In 1953, the new Group pathological laboratory was opened by the Minister of Health. And so to 1955 and the commencement of a new wing to the Nurses’ Home for the Group preliminary training school.

Matron Coyle at her home in Ireland post retirement