Written and researched by Charlotte Day.
In the days before state provision of medical care members of the public only had access to the services of a district nurse if local people could get together and raise money for such services.
In Marlow, the Provident Nursing Club, later called the Provident Nursing Association, was founded in 1908 to provide nursing care at Riley Nursing Home in Chapel Street plus a visiting district nurse and midwifery services. Locals paid a subscription or one off fee for services. The poor could be exempted from payment.
The very first district nurse recruited was Nurse Andrews who was possibly Scottish. She was considered quite a catch as she was a well experienced nurse, such being in high demand and short supply. Nurse Andrews started work in August 1908. By December 1910 (probably some months earlier) she had left her job. No wonder. In her first three months as district nurse for Marlow she had managed an average of 100 visits a week on her bicycle (provided free along with her uniform by her employers). This number did not include several what were described as "casual visits" a week to other patients, presumably to check up on those thought vulnerable to recurrent illness who were visited "just in case".
Nurse Andrews was replaced by Nurse Elizabeth Fanny Manners who was originally from Burghfield in Berkshire and born in 1872. Her father George was a domestic coachman then a cab proprietor and parish councilor for Burghfield. Before becoming a nurse Elizabeth had been a domestic servant in Bournemouth to the Tull Family who had moved there from Berkshire.
In December 1917 the Bucks Herald reported that the committee of the Provident Nursing Association had voted her a £10 bonus for her "invaluable efforts". Her workload may have been even more onerous than that of her predecessor as she was covering patients in both Marlow and Medmenham. The Association tried to recruit a second nurse to help her but found it impossible. As a result the Medmenham patients were passed instead to the nurses of the Hambledon branch of the Association after the end of 1917.
Nurse Manners appears to have lived at Remnantz Lodge (now 81 West Street) when she first arrived in town. This would make sense as this was owned by the Wethered family who were big supporters of the Provident Nursing Club / Association. She later lived with the Peddle family headed by Harry and Edith in Chapel Street. Harry had as a young man working at Turville vicarage suffered a serious accident. He collapsed when working deep down a well because of the presence of poisonous fumes. The man who risked his own life to rescue him from the well received a Royal Humane Society medal. Thanks to the quick efforts of doctors Harry was able to go home the next day. His survival was considered a miracle. If anyone appreciated the value of having medical provision readily available, it was the Peddle family.
Elizabeth Manners was still the only district nurse in Marlow in 1919 and probably in 1921 too. She had returned to her native Burghfield by 1939 and died in Oxfordshire in 1946.
Post by Charlotte, additional research by Kathryn.
Related Posts:
Kathryn's post about the setting up of the Provident Nursing Association in general here.
My biography of Marlow midwife Sarah Price here
Biography post on Matron Cole of the Cottage Hospital here
Nurse Mary Ann Cassidy biography post here
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