| Luc De Munck,University of Leuven, Belgium | The UKAHN Bulletin |
| Volume 10 (1) 2022 | |
In 1939 a Catholic university school for nurses who had already followed a regular three-year training in nursing was founded in Leuven, Belgium. This school was probably the first of its kind on the European continent. Before the start of the school director Sister Jules-Marie Heymans visited and received information on similar courses in London. This article reviews the travel report compiled by Heymans on her visit to London, the documents she received during her stay and the information on the first programme of the school in Leuven, in order to determine the influence of the British courses on the new Belgian school.
A letter from the Belgian Archdiocese
For centuries nursing in Belgium was the monopoly of Catholic nuns. This situation changed gradually at the beginning of the twentieth century, when schools for lay nurses started in Brussels and Antwerp. In 1908, the Belgian government created a certificate for nurses, after a mainly theoretical schooling of one year. But it was not until the Royal Decree of 3 September 1921 before a three-year training was formalised.[2] In response to this Decree, the Belgian bishops encouraged religious congregations to become involved in the organisation of nursing schools. They saw nursing as a vocation and a typically Catholic mission, which should certainly not be allowed to fall into the hands of non-Catholics.[3] In carrying out this mission, a nursing school opened in Leuven in 1922, initially organised by the Franciscan Sisters, but taken over in 1928 by the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary from Ghent.[4]
At the end of the 1930s the bishops – together with the Catholic University of Leuven – thought it necessary to organise additional academic training, with the aim of completing the training of nurses at the existing school in Leuven and elsewhere (at that time there were already 37 nursing schools in Belgium, of which 27 were Catholic), and preparing teachers and administrators for the Catholic nursing schools and hospitals. This move was stimulated by the rumour that opponents of Catholic education – the socialist Minister of Public Health and the State University of Ghent – had plans to start a university nursing course. Mgr. Léonard Van Eynde – Vicar General of the Archdiocese, responsible for the organisation of Catholic education, thus also for the Catholic nursing schools – wrote at the end of March 1939 a letter to Mgr. Eugène Van Rechem, the Superior General of the Sisters of Charity, asking him to arrange for an advanced training course school to be set up at the University of Leuven immediately.[5]
In his letter, Mgr. Van Eynde proposed that Sister Jules-Marie Heymans (Fig. 1) of the congregation should be appointed as director of the new school. That was not by coincidence: Sister Jules-Marie (born Maria Bertha Augusta Heymans in 1897) had already an impressive track record. She received her nursing certificate in Ghent in 1917 and in 1922 she entered the congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary. Four years later she received her diploma of doctor of medicine in Leuven, graduating magna cum lauda as the first female medical graduate. In 1929 Sister Jules-Marie became the first director of the new Saint-Vincentius hospital in Ghent, created by her congregation. She was also appointed director of the nursing school, attached to this hospital and she stayed as head of the hospital and nursing school in Ghent until 1939, when she was asked to become director of the new school in Leuven.[7]
First university nursing courses in the United States and Canada
In 1939, nursing education at a university level barely existed. In the United States, the first university course for nurses had opened in 1899 at Teachers College of Columbia University in New York. Students could take a course in Hospital Economics, to prepare them as teachers and administrators of nurse training schools. In 1909 the first full university programme was introduced at the University of Minnesota. It began as a three-year programme and added a five-year bachelor of science course in nursing in 1914. The Minnesota initiative was followed in quick succession by nursing programmes at several other universities in the United States.[8] In Canada, the first similar school started in 1919 at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. This school wanted to set up a better and stronger educational preparation for nurses. The programme comprised two years of university courses (at least one of which had to be at UBC), two years in an approved hospital programme affiliated with UBC, and a final year at UBC. This became the prototypical pattern for most university nursing programmes in Canada; it was referred to as the 2+2+1 or non-integrated programmes.[9]
Visit to London
In the same period immediately after the First World War, the Nurses’ Registration Act was passed in Great Britain, introducing the registration of nursing for the first time, and post-registration nursing training courses started to appear in London. Contrary to universities in the United States and Canada, British universities did not accept nursing as a suitable subject for university education. Although the British interwar courses were described as postgraduate courses, they were not postgraduate in a formal ‘university’ sense: students who had already received basic nursing training could apply, without the need for prior university education. The courses offered were equivalent to undergraduate, not postgraduate level. More accurately, they may be described as post-registration, rather than post-graduate. Jane Brooks described the nurses who attended courses at the university using the metaphoric notion of having ‘visiting rights’ or being ‘visitors’ rather than being members of the student body: they were allowed to enter the university, but they did not belong to a university college.[10] These students were not seen as ‘natives’ but as ‘others’, which prevented their full integration into university life.[11]
The new courses were mainly organised by the College of Nursing (Fig. 2), in cooperation with the University of London.[12] For that reason, Sister Jules-Marie was sent to London at the end of May 1939, to undertake research prior to establishing a similar post-registration school in Leuven.[13] She met Hester Constance Parsons, head of the Educational Department of the College of Nursing,[14] Olive Baggalley, secretary of the Florence Nightingale International Foundation and Helene Reynard, warden of King’s College of Household and Social Science of the University of London.[15] Based on the oral and written information that Sister Jules-Marie received from them, and completed by secondary sources, it is possible to present the history and the programmes of the first post-registration, university-based nursing courses organised in London.
Lack of information for Sister Jules-Marie
Before discussing this further, it is worth considering what Sister Jules-Marie did not hear from Parsons, Baggalley and Reynard. Surprisingly perhaps, none of these three women mentioned three important publications of the 1930s. Just before Sister Jules-Marie went to London, Gladys Carter published her book A New Deal for Nurses, in which she argued for the foundation of a British School of Nursing affiliated with a university.[16] She suggested such a school should ‘carry out the double aim of training competent, practical nurses who, when trained, would go as nurses, teachers and administrators into every department of nursing; and of conducting research into methods of nursing in the interest of a more intelligent and skilled care and education of patients, and into methods of nursing education’.[17] Carter was an advocate for higher education for nurses, but according to a contemporary, the College of Nursing regarded her as a ‘thorn in the flesh’ because she criticised the professional establishment.[18] This may explain why her book was not mentioned during Sister Jules-Marie’s stay in London.
It is less surprising that two official reports of the 1930s – the final report of the Lancet Commission on Nursing from 1932 and the interim report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Nursing Nurses from 1939 – were not recommended by Sister Jules-Marie’s interlocutors. These two reports paid little or no attention to university courses for nurses and did not involve many nurses.[19]
A course for Sister-Tutors
The first course Sister Jules-Marie received information about had started in London in 1918. It was intended for Sister-Tutors, nurses who wanted to become teachers in nursing schools.[20] The course was organised by the College of Nursing and King’s College of Household and Social Science (Fig. 3) – a department of King’s College for Women, University of London.[21] The College for Nursing had approached this department of the university for a gender-based reason: it anticipated a warmer response for a higher education course for nurses from a university which had already developed courses in ‘women’s subjects’ such as household and domestic science, than from more traditional universities.[22] In 1924-25 ten students had enrolled on the Sister-Tutor course (the highest number in the interwar period), but in 1939 there were only six.[23]
Sister Jules-Marie learned that the course did not provide an academic training, and also noted that in 1939 some of the subjects (Hygiene, Administration) were given by professors of the university. The others were taught by a Sister-Tutor.[24] The courses prepared students, who had received nurse training at one of the various hospital-based training schools around the country, to obtain their diploma from the university. The programme consisted of ten required subjects: Biology, Bacteriology, Business Affairs, Institutional Administration, Hygiene and Infant Welfare, Elementary Science, Anatomy, Physiology, Principles of Education and Methods of Teaching, and Practice Teaching Classes. There were also three recommended subjects: Economics, Invalid Cookery, and Psychology.[25] This programme thus placed much emphasis on administrative and pedagogical subjects, fully in line with the objective of the course.
International courses
The second course Sister Jules-Marie received information about was the Public Health course, which started in 1920 in London at the initiative of the League of Red Cross Societies.[26] This one-year post-registration course for international students was, in its first year, also held at the Household and Social Science Department of King’s College for Women, and again organised in cooperation with the College of Nursing. Nineteen nurses from eighteen countries – mainly from Europe, but also from the United States, Canada, Venezuela and Peru – took this first course.[27] One year later, the course was transferred to Bedford College for Women, another college of the University of London, where the students could also attend courses in the Social Sciences Department.[28] The course was designed for a limited group of international nurses, registered in their own countries, and selected on the recommendation and with the support of their National Red Cross Societies. The same organisers started a second post-registration course in 1924 for Nurse Administrators and Teachers in Schools of Nursing, with seven nurses: six from Europe, one from Venezuela.[29] This course was specially designed to meet the needs of nurses destined to take important responsibilities as administrators or teachers of nursing.[30]
From 1935 onwards, both courses were brought together in one international course (Fig. 4), offered by the Florence Nightingale International Foundation which had been founded one year earlier.[31] This foundation took over the running of the course from the League of Red Cross Societies.[32] Between 1920 and 1939 332 nurses attended the courses.[33] In 1939 the programme consisted of lecture courses, from which every student was required to select at least four (and maximum six): one from group A (Family Case Work, Nursing Education, Principles of Hospital and Training School Administration, and Public Health Nursing), at least one from group B (Personal Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Social Conditions and Social Administration, General Psychology, Applied Psychology, Ethical Principles and Practical Problems, and Physiology), and the rest from group C (eight subjects which included Principles of Education and Methods of Teaching, History of Nursing, Nutrition, Public Health Administration, A Comparative Study of Modern Industrial Problems, Eugenics, Tuberculosis, and Maternity and Child Welfare).[34]This programme was very broadly conceived, because it wanted to provide the maximum of individual tuition for their international students. This was a deliberate choice, because each student brought to the course a different background of previous training and nursing standards and took also into account that after the return to their native countries they would be confronted with a wide variety of problems.[35]
A diploma in nursing at the University of London
Sister Jules-Marie also received information about the diploma in nursing, established by the University of London in July 1926 (Fig. 5). In her travel report, she labelled this diploma as ‘the most important’.[36] The College of Nursing arranged special courses for candidates – who should all be registered nurses – preparing for the examination, which included instruction in Elementary Chemistry and Physics, Anatomy, Histology, Physiology, Bacteriology, Hygiene, Public Health, Psychology, History of Nursing, Principles of Education, and Hospital and Training School Administration.[37] This programme met two needs: a refresher of courses that had been covered during the previous nurse training, supplemented by pedagogical and administrative courses.
The regulations for the diploma had been framed to prepare nurses for responsible posts such as Matron, Sister-Tutor and Superintendent of Public Health Nurses. They were geared towards enabling qualified nurses to become more skilful, specialised nurses. There was a requirement of a two-year qualification as a nurse, one of which had to be spent in a hospital or public health department. The diploma was thus also of postgraduate type (but lacking in necessary academic rigour they could not be described as postgraduate programmes), and the syllabuses were designed to be covered in one year.[38]
In the first year, eight students gained the diploma, but the percentage of passes was less than fifty per cent.[39] By the end of the 1930s, when Sister Jules-Marie visited London, interest in the course was waning, and the failure rate was still high.[40]This limited interest had been compromised by the uneasy translation of hospital nurse training into the university setting.[41] It was also a vicious circle: the fact that there were so few applicants affected the University of London’s ability to require the same entry standards as for their regular courses. Therefore, many British nurses who wanted to study nursing at university level went to the United States or Canada in the interwar years.[42] Nevertheless, as mentioned by Brooks, this course at the University of London (and also the course founded in 1921 by the University of Leeds) ‘represented one of the first examples of extra-mural, part-time courses for women and therefore could be considered as part of a progressive agenda to promote participation in higher education for women’.[43]
The examination for the diploma was organised in two parts. Candidates were allowed to enter for each part separately or for both parts at the same time, but were not allowed to proceed to part B until they had succeeded in part A. Part A was titled Scientific Basis and General Principles of Nursing, including Elementary Psychology. This part of the programme included four elements: Physics and Chemistry; Anatomy, Histology and Physiology; Hygiene and Bacteriology; and Elementary Psychology. Students had to write four papers and pass an oral examination. In part B, one course was obligatory: History of Nursing to 1919 and Nursing Ethics, for which students had to write one paper. Additionally, students had to choose one of these courses: General Nursing (a course with five themes: Surgical Nursing, Medical Nursing, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Dietetics; and Ward Administration); Obstetric and Gynaecological Nursing; Children’s Nursing; Mental Health Nursing, including Advanced Psychology; Fever Nursing and Epidemiology; Elementary Economics, Sociology and Hygiene, in relation to the duties of Public Health Nurses; and Hospital Administration. Having chosen one of these seven courses, students were required to write two papers and to pass an oral examination. It was also possible to follow an additional subject: Methods of Teaching and Elements of Educational Psychology. These students had to write a paper and pass an oral examination.[44] This was a comprehensive programme, with a notable focus on its scientific basis and on several nursing specialisations. Presumably, these were needs that had emerged during the university’s preliminary consultation of hospitals and nursing schools.
The programme in Leuven
Following Sister Jules-Marie’s visit to London, the new University School for Nurses-Monitresses in Leuven started in October 1939 (Fig. 6). Twelve courses were taught in the first year: Religion and Ethics, Anatomy and Physiology, Pathology and Dietetics, Chemistry and Physics, Psychology, Pedagogy, Methodology, Deontology, Accountancy and Commerce, Techniques of Care for the Sick, English, and German. In the second year sixteen courses were taught: Social Doctrine of the Church in the Light of the Encyclicals, Social Legislation, Sociology, Social Service and Social Works, Social Medicine and Social Diseases, Civil and Administrative Law, Applied Psychology, Pedagogy, Methodology, Applied Deontology, Statutes and Organisation of Nursing Schools, Hospital Management and Organisation, Survey Techniques, Visits to Social Works with Report, Economics, and English.[45] The students also had to undertake internships and participate in working visits. At the end of their two-year course, they were required to write a thesis. This extensive programme was in accordance with the main objective of the School: the education of teachers for the existing Catholic nursing schools and of head nurses in Catholic hospitals. It corresponded to the need for well-educated Catholic nurses. Students were only allowed entry when they had finished their three-year basic nurse training and had at least two years’ experience in nursing work.[46]
‘British courses’ in Leuven
The curriculum at the new school in Leuven adopted many of the courses run by the London institutions. Courses in Anatomy and Physiology, Chemistry and Physics, Psychology, Sociology, Hospital Administration, Economics, and Ethics and Dietetics were adopted from the University of London course. The International Course of the Florence Nightingale International Foundation provided modules in the Principles of Hospital and Training School Administration, General and Applied Psychology, Physiology, Ethics and Social Work. Finally, the King’s College course contributed also courses in Physiology, Economics and Psychology.
Most of these courses were general in nature, so it made sense that they were part of the programme in Leuven and taught in the classrooms of the school (Fig. 7). Only two courses were more specific: Hospital Administration and Principles of Hospital and Training School Administration. They corresponded to the aim of the school to prepare their students for responsible tasks in Catholic hospitals and nursing schools. Other specific courses like Principles of Education and Methods of Teaching (from the course for Sister-Tutors and the international course), Practice Teaching Classes (from the course for Sister-Tutors) and Methods of Teaching and Elements of Educational Psychology (from the course of the University of London) were not copied in Leuven. Probably these topics were taught in the two courses of Pedagogy in Leuven, courses that were not on the programmes in London.
The absence of some other courses from London may be not surprising, because they were on the programme of the three-year nursing training in Belgium, as stipulated in the Royal Decree of 9 February 1931: Obstetric and Gynaecological Nursing in the second year-option for hospital nurses, Tuberculosis and Maternity and Child Welfare in the second year-option for visiting nurses and Mental Health Nursing in the second year-option for psychiatric nurses.[47]
Comparison between the London and Leuven programmes
Compared to the programmes of the three existing post-registration nursing courses in London, there were seven courses which were also included in the programme at the school in Leuven. So based on the titles of the courses, which seems a valid starting point, it can be said that at least seven of the twenty-eight courses (or twenty-five per cent) of the two-year programme in Leuven were comparable with courses given in London, a rather low percentage. If the two courses in English provided for students at Leuven are discounted from the analysis, this rises to thirty-two per cent.
Due to a lack of detailed information on the content of the courses in Leuven, it is not possible to compare them in detail with the British courses. It may for instance be supposed that the content of the course on Social Conditions and Social Administration of the Florence Nightingale International Foundation was reflected in one or more ‘social’ courses of the school in Leuven. This is also the case for the course of Dietetics: at the University of London, Dietetics formed only a small element of a course, whereas in Leuven it was the focus of a full course. It is also difficult to compare the course on Ethics at the University of London with Ethics as part of a course on Religion in Leuven.
The essence of the comparison between the London and Leuven programmes lies not in the names of the courses or in the percentages of the copied courses, but on what was taught. Although information on that point is lacking, there seemed to be an overlap between the two. Courses given in London but perhaps surprisingly not included in Leuven were Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology. This can perhaps be explained because similar courses were not on the programme at the Faculty of Medicine in Leuven, which implied that there was no professor available to teach these courses.[48] This could also be the explanation for the absence of a course on Eugenics, despite the fact that recent research showed that in the 1930s Belgian Catholics were not in opposition to the eugenic movement.[49] That there was no course on History of Nursing in Leuven can presumably be explained because Belgium, unlike Great Britain, did not yet have a comprehensive history in that field. On the other hand, courses on Law and Survey Techniques were on the programme in Leuven but not in London. These were topics about which the University of Leuven had a long-standing expertise.[50]
The main difference between the London and Leuven programmes was of course the attention paid by the Catholic school of Leuven to courses related to religion which included Religion and Ethics, Deontology, and Social Doctrine of the Church in the Light of the Encyclicals. Such topics were not covered in the London courses.[51] There was also a course in Leuven on Social Medicine and Social Diseases, which probably included ideas on heredity and the role of medicine in dealing with social ills from a Catholic perspective. So there were different accents in the programmes, mainly due to the Catholic identity of the school in Leuven, but the similarities between them were more important, although they cannot be quantified.
Conclusion: British influence, but own (Catholic) accents
In conclusion it appears that there was an overlap between the London and the Leuven programmes. The British influence on the first Belgian university nursing school must also be nuanced, because Leuven opted from the start in 1939 for a specific programme, which was not a copy from the existing London examples. The reason probably was that this programme had in the end not been drawn up by Sister Jules-Marie but by Mgr. Van Eynde.[52] He compiled a programme which stayed very close to the aims of the school in Leuven: preparing Catholic nurses for responsible tasks in Catholic hospitals and nursing schools. The school created a space ‘where a Christian tradition of care, morality and responsibility was integrated into the professional training of (lay) nurses’.[53] Mgr. Van Eynde had considered that the Catholic University of Leuven must not only pay attention to religion, but for instance also to law and survey techniques, courses which were not taught in London. He developed a programme which displayed its own (Catholic) accents. Apparently, he had taken only limited account of Sister Jules-Marie’s travel report.[54] Nevertheless, in her report at the tenth anniversary of the school in Leuven, Sister Jules-Marie concluded that ‘the organisation of the school was broadly speaking copied from the system already in force in Great Britain’.[55]
References
[1] The author wishes to thank Prof Dr Joris Vandendriessche, professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, Dr Jane Brooks, senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, Dr Sarah Chaney of the Library and Archives Service of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr Sue Hawkins, Editor of the UKAHN Bulletin and the anonymous peer-reviewer for their useful comments and suggestions.
[2] The history of nursing education in Belgium before, during and shortly after the First World War is treated in Luc De Munck, Altijd troosten. Belgische verpleegsters tjjdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog [Always comforting. Belgian nurses during the First World War] (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018).
[3] In April 1920, the meeting of the Belgian bishops stressed that they wanted to train Catholic nurses. Mechelen, Archiepiscopal Archives, Provinciala 22, Proceedings of the Episcopal meetings 1902-1930, Proceeding Meeting 12 April 1920, point 4.
[4] The approval for the creation of this school had already been given by the bishops in January 1919. Mechelen, Archiepiscopal Archives, Provinciala 22, Proceedings of the Episcopal meetings 1902-1930, Proceeding meeting 13 January 1919, point 2b. On the history of the school: Joris Vandendriessche, Zorg en wetenschap. Een geschiedenis van de Leuvense academische ziekenhuizen in de twintigste eeuw [Care and science. A history of the Leuven academic hospitals in the twentieth century] (Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven (Leuven University Press), 2019), 24-30.
[5] Ghent, Heritage Centre Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary (hereafter HCSCJM), Generalate Archives, Department 9: Leuven Spes Nostra, 3.4. Letter from Mgr. Van Eynde to Mgr. Van Rechem, Mechelen, 26 March 1939.
[6] All images in this article have been reproduced with full permission of the images’ owners, as noted in the associated image captions.
[7] Biographical information on Sister Jules-Marie in Luc De Munck, ‘HEYMANS, zuster Jules-Marie (HEYMANS, Sister Jules-Marie)’, Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek [National Biographic Dictionary] (Brussels: Koninklijke Academieën van België (Royal Academies of Belgium), 2020), 614-18.
[8] Lavinia L Dock and Isabel Maitland Stewart, A Short History of Nursing from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New York/London: Putman’s Sons, 1933), 175-7.
[9] The history of the school at UBC is described in a book, published on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the school: Glennis Zilm and Ethel Warbinek, Legacy. History of Nursing Education at the University of British Columbia 1919-1994 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994).
[10] Jane Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only: the early experience of nurses in higher education, 1918-1960’ (unpublished PhD thesis, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2005), 14. For example, at the start of the diploma in nursing at the University of London in 1926 students followed courses in three different colleges: the College of Nursing, King’s College for Women and Bedford College. Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 194-5.
[11] Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 170.
[12] According to Brooks, the College of Nursing did not appear to understand the nuances or ‘games’ of higher education, a lack of understanding which fed on the courses. Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 13.
[13] Sister Jules-Marie did not visit the University of Leeds, which had introduced a course in 1921. Their students had to have four years of hospital training and were required to attend three months of lectures at the University. Jane Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only: the diplomas in nursing in the UK in the interwar period’, Nursing Inquiry, 13/4 (2005), 272.
[14] Later that year, the College received permission to use the prefix ‘Royal’, although it had been granted its Royal Charter in 1928. Susan McGann, Anne Crowther and Rona Dougall, A Voice for Nurses. A history of the Royal College of Nursing 1916-1990 (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2009), 47-8.
[15] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, Jules-Marie Heymans, Voyage d’étude à Londres en mai 1939 (Travel Report to London in May 1939), 1.
[16] Carter had graduated in economics at the London School for Economics and was trained as a nurse at King’s College Hospital, so was one of the few nurses with a degree. In 1952 she was awarded the first research fellowship in nursing, which was attached to the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Ann Bradshaw, The Nurse Apprentice, 1960-1977 (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate, 2001), 126.
[17] Gladys B Carter, A New Deal for Nurses (London: Victor Gollancz, 1939), 162
[18] Rosemary I Weir, ‘Gladys Carter – an advocate of higher education for nurses’, International History of Nursing Journal, 4/2 (1998/1999), 26.
[19] The Lancet Commission on Nursing. Final Report (London: The Lancet, 1932) and Ministry of Health Board of Education, Interdepartmental Committee on Nursing Services. Interim Report (London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1939).
[20] In 1913 Alicia Lloyd Still – matron of the St Thomas’ Hospital in London – had made preliminary inquiries at King’s College to establish a one-year course for trained nurses. A scheme and syllabus were drawn up and discussed, but the war intervened. The attempt of Lloyd Still was a template for the course for Sister-Tutors. Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 82. Her proposals were further developed into the diploma in nursing of the University of London. By the start of this course in 1926 Lloyd Still had become member of the Advisory Committee and taught the course of Hospital Administration. Anne Marie Rafferty, The Politics of Nursing Knowledge (London/New York: Routledge, 1996), 115.
[21] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The College of Nursing. Announcement of the Department of Education. Session 1938-9, 5. In 1926, in conjunction with the course for Sister-Tutors, King’s College of Household and Social Science also organised a six-month training course for Health Visitors. In that year, the medicalisation of the health visiting profession had led to new regulations, which made nursing education for these previously non-trained nurses a requirement. This course had not started when Sister Jules-Marie visited King’s College. Nancy L. Blakestad, ‘King’s College of Household and Social Science and the household science movement in English higher education, c.1908-1939’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Oxford, 1994), 210.
[22] McGann, Crowther and Dougall, A Voice for Nurses, 52.
[23] Blakestad, ‘King’s College’, 333.
[24] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fonds Leuven Spes-Nostra (Fund Leuven Spes Nostra), 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, Jules-Marie Heymans, Voyage d’étude à Londres en mai 1939 (Travel Report to London in May 1939), 9.
[25] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The College of Nursing. Announcement of the Department of Education. Session 1938-9, 5.
[26] The League of Red Cross Societies was founded on 5 May 1919. The British Red Cross was one of the founder societies. Daphne A. Reid and Patrick F. Gilbo, Beyond Conflict. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1919-1994 (Geneva: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1997), 41.
[27] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation. International Course. Prospectus 1939-40, 18.
[28] McGann, Crowther and Dougall, A Voice for Nurses, 53.
[29] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation. International Course. Prospectus 1939-40, 19.
[30] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation, 1938, 7.
[31] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation, 1938, 6-8.
[32] Reid and Gilbo, Beyond Conflict, 96.
[33] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation. International Course. Prospectus 1939-40, 18-26.
[34] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation. International Course. Prospectus 1939-40, 8.
[35] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The Florence Nightingale International Foundation. International Course. Prospectus 1939-40, 5.
[36] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, Jules-Marie Heymans, Voyage d’étude à Londres en mai 1939 [Travel Report to London in May 1939], 6.
[37] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, The College of Nursing. Announcement of the Department of Education. Session 1938-9, 7.
[38] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, University of London. Regulations for diploma in nursing, 1938, 134.
[39] ‘Editorial: Diplomas in Nursing’, The Nursing Times, 3 December 1927, 1142. Cited in Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 208.
[40] Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 222. Exact figures were not found.
[41] Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 189.
[42] McGann, Crowther and Dougall, A Voice for Nurses, 55.
[43] Brooks, ‘Visiting Rights Only’, 19.
[44] Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#42 Documents on the study trip of Sister Jules-Marie Heymans to London, University of London. Regulations for diploma in nursing, 1938, 135-152.
[45] There was no information on the first programme found in the proceedings of the Organising Committee of the school. It lasted until March 1942 when the programme was published in these proceedings. Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#22 Proceedings of the Organising Committee, Proceeding meeting 13 March 1942. The first programme of the school was found on the diploma of Sister Scholastica, one of the first graduates of the school. Ghent, HCSCJM, Fund Leuven Spes Nostra, 3#32 Doubles of diplomas, Diploma of Sister Scholastica.
[46] Ghent, HCSCJM, Generalate Archives, Department 9: Leuven Spes Nostra, 3.4. Jules-Marie Heymans, De Universitaire Normaalschool voor Verpleegsters [The University School for Nurses], 1939, 3-6.
[47] Arrêté Royal du 9 février 1931 coordonnant et revisant les arrêtés relatifs au programma des examens d’infirmier et d’infirmière (Royal Decree of 9 February 1931 to coordinate and revise the Decrees concerning the programmes of the exams for nurses), Moniteur Belge (Belgian State Gazette), 20 February 1931. Cited in Pasinomie. Tome XXI, année 1931 (Part XXII, year 1931) (Brussels: Bruylant, 1931), 25-28.
[48] Information on the programme of the Faculty of Medicine in the academic year 1939-1940: Programme des Cours/Programma der Leergangen. Université Catholique de Louvain/Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven. 1939-1940 [Programme of the Courses. Catholic University of Leuven. 1939-1940] (Gembloux: Duculot, 1939) 80-90.
[49] Maarten Langhendries, ‘Catholic Doctors at the Cradle. The persona of the Catholic physician in relation to reproductive health in Belgium and the Belgian Congo (1909-1968)’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leuven, 2022), 268.
[50] De Universiteit te Leuven. 1425-1975 (The University of Leuven. 1425-1975) (Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven (Leuven University Press), 1975), 346-53.
[51] In London religious bars to nurse training existed into the twentieth century. Carmen M. Mangion, ‘Tolerable intolerance: Protestantism, Sectarianism and Voluntary Hospitals in Late-nineteenth century London’, Medical History 62/4 (2018), 478.
[52] Ghent, HCSCJM, Generalate Archives, Department 9: Leuven Spes Nostra, 3.4. Jules-Marie Heymans, Ecole Normale Universitaire pour Infirmières-Monitrices Rapport annuel 1939-1940 (The University School for Nurses-Monitresses. Annual Report 1939-1940),1940, 2. No information about Mgr. Van Eynde’s preparation of the program and his motivation for the content was found.
[53] Joris Vandendriessche and Tine Van Osselaer, ‘Medicine and Religion’, in Medical Histories of Belgium. New narratives on health, care and citizenship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ed. by Joris Vandendriessche and Benoît Majerus (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), 66.
[54] In October 1939 the school in Leuven started with eighteen students. The school existed until 1964 and trained 376 nurses in this period. 268 of them (71%) belonged to religious congregations, the others were lay nurses. In 1965, the school was integrated in the Centre for Hospital Science of the University of Leuven and became the first academic centre for nursing in Belgium. On the history of the school: Luc De Munck, ‘“De school van zuster Jules-Marie” op de Kapucijnenvoer’ [‘“The school of Sister Jules-Marie” at the Kapucijnenvoer’], SALSA! Nieuwsbrief (SALSA! Newsletter), 18/3 (2022), 6-7.
[55] ‘L’organisation de l’école fut copiée dans ces grandes lignes sur le système déjà en vigueur en Angleterre.’ Ghent, HCSCJM, Generalate Archives, Department 9: Leuven Spes Nostra, 1. Jules-Marie Heymans, Séance pour fêter le Xe anniversaire de la foundation de l’Ecole Supérieure pour infirmières-monitrices. Rapport d’activité [Session to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the start of the University School for Nurses-Monitresses. Activity Report], 1949, 3.
