 |
| Gertrude (I think) aged about 5 |
Gertrude was the ninth child and fifth daughter, born on 9 May 1862. We catch glimpses of her – as a poorly two year old, when her mother wrote from the holiday at Llanfairfechan that
Little Gertrude looks very languid, wants nursing altogether [1]
and as an 8 year old, being snubbed by her 10 year old sister – "Lily has a way of contradicting," wrote Esther Wells to Alice, "when Gerty says anything." [2]
In March 1877, after the death of little Harry, Gertrude received this sombre and unnerving reminder from her mother
Many solemn thoughts arise as we review the last sad weeks … Supposing the call had come to you, dear child, instead of to our precious little Harry, would it have found you ready? Have you given your heart wholly to Jesus? Have you sought and found forgiveness? [3]
Gertrude was fifteen at the time. We don't know what she can have been doing to prompt this warning. She seems to have been indefatigable in her voluntary work with the chapel later and her niece Lina wrote to Mary after Gertrude's death
Aunt Gertrude once told me that she did not need arguments to convince her of God's presence, He proved Himself to her [4]
In 1879 John's business hit problems and it looked as though his daughters would have to earn their own livings. Mary wrote to her mother on 3 July 1879
With regard to Father's letter to Gertrude, she was distressed at first and disposed to take a gloomy view of the subject. She would take no comfort for awhile. Her first notion was this 'Mary will be wanted at home. Lily will get married. May is too young. So I must be a charwoman, a dressmaker or a lady's companion.' However, she did not long indulge in such melancholy reflections. [5]
But disaster was averted and Gertrude was still at home, helping her mother and active at the chapel when Alice wrote on 26 December the same year
We miss you all very much. I miss the services of my loving little maid and well as herself [6]
At some point at the beginning of the 1880s Gertrude decided to train as a nurse in Liverpool. Ellen Ewing does not specify where, but it can only have been at the Liverpool Training School and Home for Nurses [7] attached to the Royal Liverpool Infirmary, which had been established in 1862 by a wealthy Liverpool philanthropist and Florence Nightingale. Nursing, it's clear from her parents' letters, was Gertrude's natural talent and we can see why it appealed so strongly to her from the introduction which Florence Nightingale wrote in 1865 for Organization of nursing: an account of the Liverpool Nurses' Training School [8]
 |
| Bust of Florence Nightingale, given by her to Nurses' School |
An Institution for training Nurses in connection with the Infirmary has been built and organized. This is a matter of necessity, because all who wish to nurse efficiently must learn how to nurse in a Hospital. Nursing, especially that most important of all its branches – nursing of the sick poor at home – is no amateur work. To do it as it ought to be done requires knowledge, practice, self-abnegation, and, as is so well said here, direct obedience to, and activity under, the highest of all Masters, and from the highest of all motives. It is an essential part of the daily service of the Christian Church
It was one of the first training schools in the country and was a highly respected institution – famous enough for the Oxford Times of 1 June 1889, when reporting the notorious Maybrick poisoning trial, to include it in the description of a nurse who was one of the witnesses ("Ellen Anne Gore, certificated nurse, of the Liverpool Nurses' Training School").
Gertrude must have impressed the Lady Superintendent in charge, because she was only in her very early twenties and in Organization of nursing it is stated that "the age considered desirable for Probationers is from 25 to 35". Her application had to supply a certificate of age, as well as a certificate of health and testimonials of character. She was accepted and started her training – but in the spring of 1884, aged 22, she fell ill with scarlet fever. Her elder sister Mary went to Liverpool to look after her, writing to their mother
I feel so glad it is an illness I have had myself because I know better how to do for her and minister to her comfort [9]
Gertrude never fully recovered from the illness, which ended all her hopes and plans for her career. And to add to the distress, the scarlet fever exacerbated the deafness which she had inherited from her mother.
The next year, in August 1885 when she was only 23, she saw a Manchester specialist, Dr Leopold Larmuth. Alice wrote to John
He hurt her very much. She would bear anything with the hope of improvement. As soon as she felt a little rested she went off to Rusholme Road to help Lily and Mabel for their Boys' tea party. Mary will go after dinner to help to entertain. I expect they will all come home thoroughly tired tonight [10]
In 1887 she went to stay with her aunt Ellen Tubbs in Reading while she endured what Ellen Ewing describes as "a searching medical examination and severe treatment of her throat". Her younger brother Albert, who was training as a doctor, was with her, and reported back to their mother on the treatment and Gertrude's fortitude during it all. Alice wrote to her
Never trouble about expense. Could money be better used? And what good is money if not used? … But, my precious child, though you may be shut out from the work you have chosen and love so well, you will not be debarred from that which your Father has appointed and for which, no doubt, He is preparing you. [11]
The result was only temporary relief. Shut out from nursing, she threw herself into charitable work. She must have been visiting the poor and sick in their homes, judging by this comment by Alice in August 1887
I do think she ought to give it up or else choose her own days for going; the damp affects her throat and increases the deafness, yet one shrinks from hindering any good work [12]
Gertrude did have a life beyond the chapel work and sick visiting. We get a glimpse of it in the spring of 1886 when she went to London to visit her brother John and his wife Evelyn and their five children at their pleasant modern villa at 3 Holland Villas Road. Alice visited some time soon afterwards. We can see from her letter to Gertrude on 8 May 1886, reporting her opinions of the exhibition at the Royal Academy, that Gertrude had been to the Exhibition before her –
I was amused to find our notions coincided. My remark on 'The death of Cain' was 'That's horrid,' and I found you had written 'horrid' [13]
 |
| Death of Cain by G F Watts Watts Gallery - Artists' Village |
In early 1888 the Whitworth Institute wanted to begin work on turning Grove House into an exhibition hall – today it is the Whitworth Art Gallery. The family decided to move out of Manchester to the Cheshire countryside to live in the prosperous village of Bowdon. Linked to Manchester by the railway and a favourite choice of the merchant princes for its peace and healthy situation, it was described by Kelly's Directory of 1877 as "studded with handsome villas and mansions". Their new home, a fine detached villa built some twenty years earlier, was 'Inglewood' on St Margaret's Road.
On 30 July 1890 Gertrude was one of the bridesmaids at her cousins' wedding in Skipton. She was a cousin of both bride and groom – Hilda, daughter of Gertrude's uncle Bonny Dewhurst, was marrying Stanley Wills, son of Gertrude's aunt, her father's sister Alice.
The wedding of a daughter of one of Skipton's major employers to a barrister from a wealthy family in the tobacco industry created quite a stir in the town. The Burnley Express reported that it was "celebrated with much pomp and ceremony". Spectators crowded to watch, there was a canvas awning the whole length of the chapel grounds, the chapel was beautifully decorated inside with "choice plants and flowers" and there was a full choral service. The bride "wore a lovely dress and train of white brocaded silk, with petticoat of muslin chiffon, trimmed with Brussels lace and orange blossom, and wore a tulle veil." Gertrude and the other three bridesmaids wore "dresses of white muslin, with Valenciennes lace, trimmed with pale green ribbon, and hats trimmed with posies of La France roses".
The list of guests shows that John and Alice's family was represented by their son Albert and their daughter-in-law Evelyn. It's a pity we don't know John and Alice's opinions on this grand wedding – I think they would certainly have preferred something much more simple and restrained – but any letters mentioning it had not survived to be quoted in Ellen Ewing's book.
At the end of 1892, John fell very ill and Gertrude came into her own as a devoted nurse. They grew very close as she nursed him over the following two years and there are several very loving letters between them. Gertrude wrote to her father
The joy of nursing you will always be a bright gleam to lighten future years. That to have the opportunity of showing that I love you was something for which to thank God with my whole heart [14]
And on 8 May 1895 he told her
Well dearest Gertrude, I wish you were by my side that I might tell you some of the things that are in my heart about you. How much do I owe you; that is one of the things I could not tell – it is beyond computation or narration [15]
The next day was her 33rd birthday. Soon afterwards she fell ill with influenza and died of acute pneumonia at 'Inglewood' on the morning of 16 May 1895. Only a few minutes' walk away, her sister May's second child was born that evening – a little daughter they called Gertrude.
Ellen, Gertrude, Harry and baby William Henry lie in the family vault with their parents at Southern Cemetery, Manchester.
 |
| Gertrude & Ellen's names on family grave (courtesy of Bob the Greenacre Cat @ findagrave.com) |
Notes
[1] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910 (1948) ed. Mary Hopkinson and her niece Lady Ewing, with a Preface by Sir Gerald Hurst, K.C., p. 41
[2] ibid., p. 58
[3] ibid., p. 72
[4] ibid., p. 99
[5] ibid., p. 65
[6] ibid., p. 74
[8] which can be read online here Wellcome Collection
[9] John and Alice Hopkinson 1824-1910, p. 86
[10] ibid., p. 89
[11] ibid., p. 93
[12] ibid., p. 93
[13] ibid., p. 92
[14] ibid., p. 98
[15] ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment