Collecting Nursing History 3 A Nurse History - Mary Ellen (Mollie) Watkin. Research - Sue Barker Text - Wilf Burgess |
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Mary Ellen Watkin - was born
Upton, Widnes, Lancashire on 20th September, 1887. She was the second
born of 10 siblings - 8 sisters and 1 brother. Mary Ellen,
'Mollie', had become a member of the St John Ambulance Association at
an early age, which was in all probability the point where where her
first interest in nursing began to emerge.
St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Her
first entry into the 'recognised' nursing profession was the position
she gained as
a probationer at Bart's. The daily lives of probationers was at that
time, to say the
least, daunting. Rigidly regimented and with little personal time - and
probably no time at all for breaking any rules! Demanding to say the
very least. During training, on her way to
what was to become a
distinguished, if so far unsung career, in the course of which she would
also care for the injured and wounded from the WWII, she took
the Bart's Gold Medal* (dated April 19th
1922).
The position of nursing at St
Bartholomew's was reinforced by the hospital's own history - the second (time
wise) great
pioneering lady of the nursing profession - Ethel Gordon Manson - was appointed Matron in 1881 - she was just 24 years old. Later as
Mrs Bedford Fenwick, in 1887, she founded the Royal British Nursing
Association - possibly the first professional nursing organization in the world,
and fought long and hard for a State Register of nurses. She went on to become Britain’s first state
registered nurse. Hardly surprising since the first General Nursing
Council - that for England & Wales, was created in no small part because
of her own determined efforts. She also became it's first Chairman.
Summary. Mary Ellen Watkin's career then, had started when became a member of the St John Ambulance Association when she was in her teens. Later she became a member of the 44th Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) which led her to nursing sick and injured WWI servicemen at the Tower Hospital, Rainhill and later Tigne Hospital, Malta, before commencing her career at Bart's. On Aug 1st, 1919 - the date she became a Probationer there, she was 31 years old.* In retrospect now it seems now an odd route into nursing. Members of the VAD's - Voluntary Aid Detachments of the St John and Red Cross organisations - were not generally respected by 'trained' nurses of that period. Whatever the reality of that situation, VAD nurses served alongside 'regular' trained nurses both at home and overseas in WWI, and lost their lives striving for the same goals. But by whatever route Mollie had entered, by the time her career concluded she had reached her 60th birthday and had given 30 years of service to Bart's. *She retired on October 6th 1949, after more than 30 years continuous service at perhaps one of the most prestigious hospitals not only in the whole British Empire at the time she started, but in the world. To say nothing of it's historic position in relation to the nursing profession and continued prestige today. According to Ted Watkin-Jones, an uncle who knew her throughout her life, she viewed the end of her career with considerable sadness, having devoted her life to the nursing profession per se, and almost her entire professional career to St Bartholomew's. She felt that she had been consigned to the scrap heap.. Perhaps, especially for those nurses who dedicated their whole lives to nursing in the early years of the profession, when even marriage meant expulsion, such feelings seem natural to those never in that position. To those who had so dedicated their lives, such as Mollie Watkin, they would have been no less real - a final demand of a demanding profession... A demand which had to be met. Mary Ellen Watkin died at Widnes, Lancashire, on November 23rd 1967 aged 80 years. Perhaps that would have been the end of the matter - her name fading into history after a distinguished career - were it not for chance, or perhaps fate, bringing her name, her legacy, into the public gaze once again. Notes: St Bartholomew's was founded, with the Priory of St Bartholomew, in 1123 by Rahere, formerly a courtier of Henry I.*
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SECTION 1 Schools of Nursing. SECTION 2 |
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44 Voluntary Aid Detachment for 4 years,
caring for the injured and wounded from WWI. Her first posting was to the Tower Hospital
Rainhill (Leicester?). A posting which lasted until February 1916 - around 7 or 8
months.
photograph of Mollie
in her VAD uniform. Another photograph of ex-Gallipoli servicemen in a ward at
the Tigne Hospital, and a photograph of a hospital ship at Malta. So
little... Except for the small number of military
badges she had been given by her patients. There are probably one
or two from WWII (By which time Mollie was at St Bartholomew's) - but we
need to investigate these further - they might at least reveal from
which WWI service units she had nursed servicemen from at Tigne.
of
course, it's links with another prestigious hospital - The Royal London
Hospital... remain to this day with the amalgamation of their nurse
training schools at the city University - where Edith Cavell trained.
Edith Cavell was of course shot on October 12, 1915 by German forces
because she had helped hundreds of allied servicemen escape from
German occupied Belgium during WWI. Mollie was at that time a VAD nurse
at the Tower Hospital. It is fair to assume that she must have been
aware of Edith Cavell, venerated as that superb lady was..