Search results for ""Author Jenny Main""

A great nursing reformer, Ethel Gordon Fenwick was born before the age of the motor car and died at the start of the jet age. When she began her career, nursing was a vocation, unregulated with a dangerous variety of standards and inefficiencies. A gifted nurse, Ethel worked alongside great medical men of the day and, aged 24, she became the youngest matron of St Bartholomew's hospital London, where she instigated many improvements. At that time, anyone could be called a nurse, regardless of ability. Ethel recognised that for the safety of patients, and of nurses, there must be an accepted standard of training, with proof of qualification provided by a professional register. Often contentious, Ethel was a determined woman. She fought for nearly thirty years to achieve a register to ensure nurses were qualified, respected professionals. A suffragist and journalist, she travelled to America where she met like-minded nursing colleagues. As well as helping to create the International Council of Nurses, and the Royal British Nurses Association, she was also instrumental in organising nurses and supplies during the Graeco-Turkish War, and was awarded several medals for this work. Thanks to her long campaign for registration, a year after her death nurses were ready to take their place alongside other professionals when the National Health Service began in 1948.

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Women have been sidelined throughout history in the rush to tell the stories of great wars, great battles and the achievements of great men. But in Moray - a part of Scotland encompassing both Highland and Lowland areas btween Inverness and Aberdeen - a group of people have begun a project to uncover the stories of the women who lived in Moray from medieval to modern times.Discover Flaming Janet, James IV's mistress; Elsie Watson who rode solo across South Africa on a motorcycle in 1912; the Queen's nurse in Foula dn Fair Isle in the 1920s; the spymaster of Albanian agents during the Second World War; the Traveller born in the bow-tent and more.This book captures the tales of over 70 women whose lives have made an impact on history both in Scotland and abroad. It sheds light on their misfortunes, prjudice and abuse, and shows how these challenges have been overcome.Women of Moray is a unique glimpse into the history of the region, looking at women marginalised, forgotten and usually uncelebrated across the centuries. For the historian, the genealogist and the general reader, this is a book that will deepen your understanding of history.

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