Tolpuddle 2014 Nurses & Health Workers

WW1 Memorial - St Mary's Hospital, Paddington

Fair Pay Rally June 10th 2014

People's March For The NHS - 6 September 2014

WW1 Nurses Joining Up - August 1914

Nurses wishing to volunteer for active service must do so at the office of the British Red Cross Society, which is now established at Devonshire House, Piccadilly, London, (now Green Park tube station) by the kindness of the Duke of Devonshire who has placed the whole of the ground floor at the disposal of the committee. 

Devonshire house is easily identified by the Red Cross flag which floats over it. Nurses engaged in hospitals or on the staffs of private nursing institutions or district nursing associations should first get the assent of the matron or superintendent.

On inquiring at the medical department of the Admiralty we learn that many applications are made there by nurses of varying qualifications the authorities are not in need of nurses or desirous of enrolling them and it is unlikely that the services will be utilised if offered their.

Many hundreds of applications are also made at the War office. In both instances application should be made through the British Red Cross Society.

Applications for enrollment in the international nursing corps of active service in the war, up from three years certified nurses should be made at headquarters of the International Council of nurses for 431 Oxford Street London executive of the National Union of Trained Nurses is desired to offer them to the central office at 39 Great Smith Street, Westminster as a clearing house of trained nurse volunteers

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War having been declared the voluntary aid detachments (VAD) have ceased to be under the orders of the British Red Cross Society are now under the local military authorities with whom they are registered. The organisation of the society will be employed to assist any detachment mobilised by Reid furnishing stores and drugs and in supplying hospitals and general comforts

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Canadian surgeons and nurses who are not attached to the regular Forces the Territorial Forces or the British Red Cross Society and who were willing to give their service to the Canadian voluntary hospital contingent are requested to send their names with particulars of qualifications and experience to W MacLeod Moore honorary secretary general buildings order which London WC

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First London General Territorial Hospital opened at St Gabriels College, Cormont Road Camberwell  (nurses are all seconded from St Barts but wear the Grey & Scarlet of military nurses

Picture Guy's Hospital nurses leave for the Front - 17th August 1914

Source British Journal of Nursing 15th August 1914

Professional Union of Trained Nurses - First Nursing union - 25 October 1919

Proffesional Union of Trained Nurses

A meeting to consider the formation of a trade union for trained women nurses a largely attended meeting took place on Saturday (25th October 1919) afternoon at the Mortimer Hall, Great Portland street, London.

Among the objects of the movement, as outlined by Mr. Theodore Goddard, the solicitor who has been advising the organizers, are the promotion of State registration of al trained nurses; the establishment of an employment agency; the securing of a minimum rate of remuneration and maximum working hours; the provision of benefits for members when totally incapacitated; and the abolition of abuses detrimental to their welfare and economic independence. 

Miss Maude MacCallum, who presided, said that the movement bad originated in the ranks of the working nurses, and no existing society was responsible for it. She referred to the " unfair competition" of hospitals which were housing and maintaining private staffs and. undercutting the trained nurses in outside professional. work. One large hospital was already sending out nurses at 2 and half guineas a week. 

Miss MacCallum moved a resolution that immediate steps be taken to form a professional union. Miss Mac Donald, who seconded, said that never had there been a time of greater crisis for the nurses. Thousands were out of employment because they could not secure a living wage. 

STRIKE
The resolution to- form.- union was declared carried by a large majority. A nurse among the audience expressed the hope that any strike clause in the rules would be so framed to ensure that it would be directed against the employers

Proffesional  Union of Trained Nurses (PUTN) - the first nursing union estb 25/10/1919

A meeting was held on the afternoon of Saturday  25th October 1919 (inaugural meeting) at Mortimer Hall, great Portland Street to establish a nursing union - The Union for Trained Nurses.

Miss MaCallum moved a resolution that immediate steps be taken to form a professional union. Miss MacDonald seconded stating "never had there been a time of greater crisis for the nurses. thousands were out of employment because they could not secure a living wage"

The resolution to form a union was declared carried by a large majority

Report from the Times newspaper 27th October 1919

New Zealand Military Hospital & Maori Battalion - Walton on Thames - WW1

New Zealand Military Hospital opened August 1915 - Closed 1920

Mount Felix House, Walton on Thames, Surrey


Private James Livingstone Porter served with the Otago Infantry Battalion.  He worked as a moulder before joining up early in the war and departing from Port Chalmers in October 1914.  He died of wounds sustained at Gallipoli in October 1916.
 
Corporal Thomas Wallace Phillips was part of the Auckland Mounted Rifles and the 2^nd Reinforcements, he is mentioned on the War Memorial at Cambridge, New Zealand.
 
Private William Fox’s name is recorded wrongly on the banner as ‘Cox’.  He was a member of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion with the 4^th Reinforcements.  The spelling mistake has been transferred once more from the banner to the modern commemorative plaque which is now installed in the church!

Acting Corporal John Brian Dalton had previously had a long association with the Hawera Mounted Rifles Volunteer Force.  He embarked from Wellington on 17^th April 1915 to serve with the Otago Mounted Rifles as part of the 4^th Reinforcements.  He was slightly wounded at Gallipoli but had become seriously ill by the time he reached England, where he was admitted to the hospital at Walton-on-Thames and died on the 2^nd December 1915.

Corporal Henry Hudson was part of the Main Body of the Wellington Infantry Battalion who left Wellington in 1914.  He died two years later from heart failure following pneumonia.

Driver Arthur Hall was part of the Army Service Corps.  He died of heart failure following an operation at Walton-on-Thames in June 1916.
Driver William Henry Russell was part of the 9^th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Field Artillery, he died of his wounds in September 1916.
Rifleman Edward Rout was employed as a general labourer by J. Cole of Papatoetoe before joining the 1^st Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade.  He died of wounds inflicted to his right shoulder and right leg in October 1916.
Private Kingi Hamana was part of the 1^st Maori Contingent, B Company.  He died of tuberculosis in October 1916.
Private John Lewis Boyd was part of the Auckland Mounted Rifles and the 7^th Reinforcements.  His injuries left him paralysed from the waist down.  He remained in England after being discharged from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as his mother lived in Hampshire.  He died in 1932 and was buried at Walton-on-Thames, so his name must have been added to the banner long after it was originally installed in the church, and only shortly before it was removed to make way for a more permanent memorial.

Sapper Jack Fleming was married to Anne Charleswood and had two daughters, Annie Elizabeth and Nellie.  He left his family in Auckland when he embarked in April 1916 with the New Zealand Field Engineers.  He died of disease in October the same year.
 
Private Montrose Baker from Gisbourne was a member of the Wellington Infantry Battalion and the 7^th Reinforcements.  He died from his wounds.


Private William Henry Rishworth of Dunedin was wounded by shrapnel whilst serving with the Otago Infantry Regiment in the 12^th Reinforcements.  He later died of his wounds at Walton-on-Thames.

Rifleman George Blinko was a cabinetmaker from Hastings who served with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade before contracting pneumo-coccal meningitis and dying on 6^th January 1917.

Private Robert Black was husband of Alice Ann Black from Rarotonga and an accountant before he joined the Wellington Infantry Regiment.  He died of disease in April 1917.

Miss T. W. Bennet was a nurse in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) who worked at the New Zealand General Hospital No. 2.  Unfortunately we have so far not been able to uncover any more information about her.

Colonel Charles Mackie Begg was a surgeon in the New Zealand Medical Corps and became the Director of Medical Services for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.  He died at his home in Twickenham from influenza and pneumonia in 1919.

Information from the Museum of New Zealand

New Zealand VAD Nurse

Wilmet Annie Bennett VAD Nurse, aged 32-  Daughter of the late Joseph Bennett, of Otahuao, Masterton, Wellington. died of an appendicitis 21/11/1918 buried at Walton on Thames

 

Maori Battalion 

 

The Maori Contingents red and black blaze was New Zealands first cloth distinguishing patch to be adopted in WW1. (and may reflect the traditional colours of the Maori people)

 

Buried at Walton on Thames

Private Ramera (Raniera) Wairau embarked from Wellington in September 1915 as part of the 2^nd Maori Contingent.  He died of tuberculosis in 30 October 1916. Son of Ra and Wahati Wairau, of Opoutama, Hawke''s Bay.

Private Kingi Hamana New Zealand Maori Pioneer Battalion 03/10/1916 Son of Rongo and Pine Hamana, of Te Wairoa, Hawke''s Bay.

 

 

Private Taura from Atiu, Rarotonga, joined the Rarotongans Unit of the 3^rd Maori contingent, despite not being able to speak any English.  Son of Tuakina Atiu, of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. He contracted tuberculosis and died 07/01/1917

 

 

 Maori Battalion,

 "Te Hokowhitu a Tu" -
'The 70 twice-told warriors of the War God'.

 

 

 

Charing Cross Nurse Lost On The Lusitania

Mabel Bourke (nee England) was lost on the sinking of  the Lusitania along with Ella Lawrence, 50, was a British national from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  Both women had volunteered for service under the Serbian Red Cross in the Balkans.

Mabel Bourke appears on the list of passengers incorrectly as Burke, trained at Charring Cross and was also a midwife in the East End 

Source: British Journal of Nursing

Marie Depage, known as Marie de Page, 43, was a nurse from Brussels, Belgium who worked with her husband Dr Antoine Depage to tend to the war wounded.  (Ocean Hotel - La Panne) 

She had been in the United States to fundraise for Belgian military medical aid, and was returning home on Lusitania to see her son Lucien, who was being called into military service.  During the sinking, Marie Depage and Dr James Houghton helped many children to safety.  Marie Depage was lost in the sinking and her body was recovered,

Her body was brought back to The Ocean Hotel at La Panne where Dr Depage worked at the Red Cross Hospital – nurses followed the the funeral procession of the very popular Marie Depage through the sand dunes

Picture British Journal of Nursing

Les Bennett (1920-2014) - COHSE Branch Secretary KGV Hydestile Hospital

Les Bennett a passionate supporter of "progress" and "justice" for mankind has passed away on the 6th April 2014 aged 94, he was born 20th March 1920 at Nursecombe near Bramley,

Les who as Branch Secretary of COHSE the health care union from 1948 was the driving force behind the union organising of health workers in the Godalming and Guildford area from the 1940's onwards. He was also a vociferous and passionate supporter of the National Health Service.

Under Les guidance the COHSE health union branch developed from a group of 10 hospital workers, to scared to make their union membership known, to a thriving union branch of over 1,000, a majority of whom were nurses.

Les Bennett was also a Hascombe Parish Council from 1953 for over fifty year, serving many years as Chairman. 

He was also a regular parishioner at Hascombe village church and life long labour party member.

Les was born the son of a Kent horticulturalist, after he left Bramley CofE school he started work aged 14 in a garden nursery, due  a motor car accident in which he received a fractured skull he was denied an opportunity to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps during WW2, despite having being a member of the Red Cross at Shalford from 1938.

He then undertook various jobs in the building trade, it is hear that he received his education on the importance of trade unionism. He lost his job when the foremans son needed a job

In July 1941 as a Bath attendant at the newly relocated St Thomas Hospital, London, which had transferred patients to large mansion house in Milford due to the blitz in Easter of 1941.

The first thing the head porter told him was not to join a union, but that's exactly what Les and a few brave individuals did, meeting secretly at the Alton Ale House.

Les was elected as Branch secretary when many of the original founders of the branch moved back to London at the end of the War, taking a trade union postal course to acquire the skills needed to represent his members.

Les Bennett held the position of Branch Secretary from October 1948 until 1977.

One of Les Bennetts first actions as branch secretary was to write a letter to the COHSE journal exposing the scandal of local student nurses forced due to lack of income to pick onions on local farms to subsidies their meager earnings and to pay for rail tickets home

He was elected to the local Hascombe Parish Council in 1953 having beaten Major Goodman the local squire, a victor that caused him to be victimised but not by the electors who returned him for the next 50 years, many as Chairman

Les a quietly spoken man, brimming with inner confidence and a passion for justice, he was a devoted family man committed to caring for his wife Audrey especially during a long period of ill health towards the end of her life, and despite his many commitments to their children Valerie and twins Hazel, Lesley and Mary. He encouraged many young hospital workers to become active in  health care trade unionism, including Carles Martinez who was to succeed him as Branch secretary in 1977 and held the branch secretary position until 2007

Les Bennett ended his career as the much respected head porter at the hospital and was loved by his members who respected his tireless efforts on their behalf, he could also take pride in later years that as a result of his efforts, COHSE union membership at St Thomas Hospital, Milford Chest Hospital, King George V Sanatorium was close to 100%.
His legacy and battles for justice will live on and those who were fortunate enough to have known him will pay respect now and long into the future 

Les Bennett - Local Hero - Friend of The People

Photos

Les Bennett with Carles Martinez, who took over as Branch Secretary in 1977

and Les wife Audrey (his not in the picture were children children were Valerie, Hazel and Lesley)

With Mike Sumers COHSE Regional secretary

With Albert Spanswick COHSE General Secretary


COHSE is now Unison

Addenbrookes Hospital Cleaners Strike 1985-1986

Addenbrookes Hospital (Domestics) Cleaners Strike, Cambridge 1985-1986 against OCS Cleaning Company

Neasden Hospital Occupation 1986

COHSE banner Durham Miners Gala 1988

COHSE banner at the Durham Miners Gala 1988
Yorkshire & Humberside

How Many Londoners are Dying for one of These? - NHS Bed - Billboard 1996

How Many Londoners are Dying for one of these? NHS Bed billboard 1996
UNISON, NHS Consultants Assoc and NHS Support Federation

COHSE NHS Rally 1985 - St Albans

COHSE NHS Rally St Albans, Hertfordshire 8th January 1985 huge attendance from members at Hill End and Shenley as well as local General hospitals.

Also include a miners speaker

Huge attendance and excellent speeches, notably from Paul Noone President of the Consultants Association

COHSE Colin Thomson - Marathon Runner

Colin Thomson COHSE health union regional officer based at Pontypridd and later Treforest COHSE office late 1980s to mid 90s, Yorkshire-man and regular marathon runner. Lived and trained in the Rhondda,

Completed his first 100 marathon's in 1993