Making the Rounds: Stories of Workhouse Nurses Told in Textiles

Rachel Kidd

 

Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, situated in the Norfolk countryside, started its museum life in 1975 as the Norfolk Rural Life Museum. Over the years, the site’s long history as a House of Industry, Union Workhouse, Public Assistance Institution and Care Home were brought increasingly to the forefront of the museum’s interpretation.

 

For several years, museum staff and dedicated volunteers have drawn on various archives to piece together the history of the site and the rich lives of workhouse inmates.¹ In 2023-4, for the first time, the museum turned its focus towards workhouse nurses – a pivotal yet often-overlooked part of workhouse life – who cared for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Norfolk. A list of over three hundred named nurses was pulled together, all of whom lived and worked on the site between approximately 1834 and 1948.²

 

Volunteers, working remotely and joining us for regular meetings on site, took the names of individual nurses and pulled together their life stories, placing their time at Gressenhall within the context of rich lives and longer careers. Nearly seventy new biographies were created which together reflected the national picture of professionalisation in nursing, moving from untrained pauper inmates to qualified professionals.

 

Figure 1: Group of nurses posed outside Gressenhall Public Assistance Institution (former Mitford and Launditch Union workhouse), c.1931. courtesy of Norfolk Museums.

 

The earliest named nurse on record was Mary Kittle, born in 1806 to Judith Algood, a workhouse resident herself and single mother. It is unclear whether Mary was an inmate when she was employed as a nurse in 1837. She was no longer living with her husband, and her two children entered the workhouse with her, with Mary paying for their care. Mary was one of several examples of paupers finding employment and accommodation through nursing. Having gained experience at the workhouse, she went on to work for West Norfolk and Lynn Hospital for over twenty years until her retirement.³

 

Mary Wallin (born 1868), on the other hand, built a career as a nurse from a young age, starting at the age of eighteen as an Assistant Nurse in the children’s ward of Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital. Mary moved every few years between various convalescent homes, workhouses and hospitals before arriving at Gressenhall in 1895. By 1896, aged 28, she was promoted to Head Nurse, with medical officer and short-lived fiancé (as Mary’s great niece Madeline told us) Arthur Rackham describing her as ‘… most attentive to patients under her charge’ and ‘… a kind and reliable Nurse’.⁴ She stayed for just over two years before moving to other institutions and eventually formalising her experience through medical examinations.⁵

 

Figure 2: Mary Wallin, c.1905, courtesy of Madeline Ahad

 

Interestingly, only one male nurse was found in the guardian minutes: Robert Platfood, a workhouse inmate appointed in 1846. He was deemed to be ‘incapable’ and was replaced in just over a week.⁶

 

Telling these stories

It quickly became clear that the volunteers were uncovering a wealth of rich information and stories with which our museum visitors would strongly connect . An exhibition was planned but the lack of surviving objects and relatively few photographs meant we were in danger of creating an intimidatingly text-heavy exhibition, unsuitable for our family-focussed audiences.

 

The solution was found in the form of Norfolk-based textile artist Connie Flynn who we commissioned to create five new textile pieces. For over a year Connie attended our research meetings, creating works that reflected her own response to the research, as well as to the main themes of the exhibition. The use of textiles spoke to the themes of intimacy, care and illness. Their frayed edges or visible repairs reflected the hard work and isolation experienced by many of the nurses. The result was an unusual exhibition which interwove delicate textile art pieces and the archival sources which inspired them. Visitors had the option to read all seventy of the new biographies, displayed on hanging clipboards,

 

Figure 3: Kidney Dish, Bandage, Scissors, 2024 by Connie Flynn. Hand felted wool fibres, mixed media. Courtesy of Norfolk Museums

 

 

The exhibition ‘Making the Rounds: Stories of Workhouse Nurses Told in Textiles’ was exhibited at Gressenhall Farm and workhouse in 2024, and the Royal College of Nurses in 2025. A summary of the nurse biographies can be found on the Workhouse Network website.