Jessie MACKENZIE - Nurse

[valspall]

Hello all,
I have just received my long-awaited copy of Nursing Service from the National Archives. Very sadly, the Jessie Mackenzie to whom it refers is not MY Jessie Mackenzie. I am happy to pass it on to anyone who is researching Jessie MACKENZIE born 14 Dec 1874 Borve, Barvas, ROC. It is a 20 page record of her time as a Queen Alexandra nurse & I would love for it to find its proper home.

Val

[Kevin Garrad]

Where in TNA do you find anything about Nursing Service?

I find TNA the most unfriendly, unhelpful archive service, and have NEVER found any information from their online archives.
I live in The Netherlands, so cannot visit in person.

My father's half-sister was in Nursing Service all her life, but I simply cannot find any information about her?

[Peter Goodey]

Where in TNA do you find anything about Nursing Service?

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/patients-doctors-and-nurses.htm?WT.lp=rg-3191


I find TNA the most unfriendly, unhelpful archive service

And many people have a much more positive experience.

[valspall]

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/patients-doctors-and-nurses.htm?WT.lp=rg-3191



And many people have a much more positive experience.

I must admit that I've never had a problem with them!

[Kevin Garrad]

And many people have a much more positive experience.

I'm sure that's true - I was talking from my own personal experiences.
I find the searching very difficult to use, and on the rare occassions that something does turn up, it's never available for online lookup!


I have no desire to visit London, for any reason, and rarely have enough free time to consider a visit to Kew for a day.
Sure, I want things easy, but TNA @ Kew is not accessible for many of us who live outside the UK, or even the South East of England.

As a case in point (and thank you, Peter, for the link):
TNA has lots about Doctors, as does Ancestry.
I have tried the RCN - details obtained were very sketchy.
I don't know in which hospitals my Aunt worked, so I can't utilise Hospital Records Databases.

Basically TNA seems to have very little information regarding the Nursing Profession? Or am I missing something?

[valspall]

Hi Kevin,
In my experience (limited!) , it isn't easy tracing nursing records. When I first tried to get information on my grandmother Jessie Mackenzie I wrote to Farnborough Hospital as this was the hospital closest to where my grandmother lived. They told me that nursing records as such were not particularly centralised & were often not even held by the hospital at which the nurse was trained. And I may be wrong but I think TNA only hold records of nurses during the war.
It is frustrating researching from outside of the UK (I'm in Australia) - thank goodness for lists such as this!
Val

[Sue Light]

Val

I'm sure you're aware (but just in case!) there are four service records at The National Archives for women named Jessie McKenzie or Jessie Mackenzie. The cataloguing is not always perfect, either because of clerical error, or because a different spelling of the surname was used in the file.
The National Archives hold copies of all General Nursing Council Registers for England and Wales from the first edition in 1921/22. So it should be relatively easy to trace any fully-trained nurse who practised in England and Wales after that date. They give name, number on the Register, date of registration and training hospital with dates of training, and also include 'permanent address.' The permanent address is sometimes a fixed home address of a woman's family i.e. where her parents live - the family home. But some women without a family (in that sense) will give a variety of addresses which change from edition to edition, and so in some cases may reflect the hospital at which she's working at the time.

The run of Registers at TNA are only for England and Wales, and records for nurses trained in Scotland are held at the Scottish National Archives in Edinburgh. And just to clarify, many Scottish woman trained as nurses in England/Wales, so the town she trained in is the relevant factor rather than where she herself originated. Pre WW2 women had to notify their change of address, marital status etc., every year, but as the number of trained nurses grew this practice stopped, so for the later period the only address will be the one given on original registration. TNA also hold a similar run of registers for midwives.

I have two copies here of GNC Registers for England and Wales, 1928 and 1942. So if anyone would like a nurse's name checked, I'll have a look. Once a nurse was no longer registered or actively working, either by age, marriage or death, she ceases to appear in the subsequent editions. Tracing nurses in the twentieth century is really not much different from any other profession at the time. It's never too hard to find out where and when they qualified, but being able to trace their movements throughout their working life is unlikely.

Sue

[valspall]

Thanks Sue. I did actually order the most likely of these four Jessie Mackenzies but sadly it was not my grandmother. My grandmother Jessie Mackenzie (1890-1971) was born & also trained in London; but she did so just before, or at the start of the first war. She was indeed a fully-trained nurse but as her training was before the 1921/22 edition you speak of I have not had much success getting any information on her nursing career. If you have any suggestions I'd be most grateful!
Cheers
Val

[Sue Light]

Val

The date of her training doesn't matter - if she was actually still working after 1921 then she should appear in one of the early editions. It will just depend on when she married/stopped working as a nurse (which are usually one and the same).

Sue

[valspall]

She married in 1918, Sue so I guess so gave up nursing then. I do know though that she worked as a private night nurse for an elderly lady during the 1930's as my mother (her daughter) was in service at the time & recommended her mother to her employers when their regular night nurse took time off. I suspect this was a one-off job though.

[Kevin Garrad]

Val

I have two copies here of GNC Registers for England and Wales, 1928 and 1942. So if anyone would like a nurse's name checked, I'll have a look.

That's very helpful of you Sue.

My Aunt, Ethel Irene Primrose Garrad, b 1908 Wiltshire d 1970 Sussex, was trained in Bristol (I believe), and ended up as a Matron in a Mental Hospital in Sussex. (I can't remember which one! But I did visit as a child).
Her home address was her father's in Portishead, Somerset after he married for the 3rd time to my grandmother.

My father seems to recall that she did some of her training in Birmingham? But, he is suffering from Alzheimer's, and I haven't found any proof of this?

If you could do a look up, I would be very grateful!

Are the Registers at TNA available online?

[Sue Light]

Kevin

The General Nursing Council Register for 1942 shows the following details:

Garrad, Ethel Irene Primrose
No. on Register: 100086
Permanent Address: Channel Nursery, South Road, Portishead, Somerset
Trained: Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, 1936-39, by examination
Date of Registration: 23 June 1939

So her three year general training was in Birmingham, and checking the other parts of the Register there is no other entry in the part for Fever, Children's or Mental nurses, so that would seem to be her only recognised nurse training. She may well have trained later as a midwife or perhaps in mental nursing which a later register might show up. And no, unfortunately none of the GNC Registers or Midwives' Registers are online.

Regards --- Sue

[Kevin Garrad]

Thank you very much, Sue.

I should point out that her father, my grandfather was a Nurseryman - plants!
So she would not have trained (necessarily!) as a midwife or children's nurse!!

There was, at one point, a strain of tomato called "Garrad's Delight", which was advertised in Horticultural journals.