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Presidential Address: The 1890s Debate over the Democratic Control of Hospitals in Britain and New Zealand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2021

Abstract

Anna Clark's presidential plenary to the 2018 North American Conference on British Studies in Vancouver, British Columbia, compares scandals over the mistreatment of patients and nurses that led to demands for popular control of hospitals in both Britain and New Zealand in the 1890s. A high death rate at the Chelsea Hospital for Women in London, located near a Pasteur Institute for animal research on vaccination, incited fears of human vivisection. The high death rate of nurses at the London Hospital provoked newspaper exposés and parliamentary investigations and calls for the municipalization of voluntary hospitals. In Christchurch, New Zealand, a debate over the rudeness of doctors and nurses enraged citizens. The flames of these scandals were sparked by newspaper agitation but fanned by feminists, socialists, trade unionists, and animal-rights organizations. In response to fears around experimentation, Fabian socialists Havelock Ellis, Harry Roberts, and Honnor Morten proposed democratic control of hospitals. These demands, focusing on patients’ rights and nurses’ health, differed from the hospital reform movement that urged hospitals to become more economical by forcing patients to pay. They also diverged from Beatrice and Sidney Webb's admonitions that the state must oversee citizens’ health for the nation to function efficiently. Although the calls for the democratic control of hospitals did not succeed, they might be seen as germs of a patient-centered approach to hospital care.

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Original Manuscript
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies, 2021

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References

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39 TNA, HO 45/9879/B15780/6, Vestry of Parish of Chelsea, 1894; TNA, HO 45/9879/B15780/4, Letter to Asquith, Secretary of State, from Chelsea Vestry Clerk, 22 February 1894.

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41 “Human Vivisection,” Daily Chronicle (London), 15 May 1894; see also Edward Berdoes, letter to the editor, Daily Chronicle (London), 17 May 1894; London District Medical Officer, letter to the editor, Daily Chronicle 17 May 1894; “Human Vivisection,” Daily Chronicle 31 May 1894.

42 They wrote letters to Parkes. TNA, HO 45/9879/B15780/4, Letter to Asquith, Secretary of State, from Chelsea Vestry Clerk, 22 February 1894.

43 Sally Wilde, “Truth, Trust, and Confidence in Surgery, 1890–1910: Patient Autonomy, Communication, and Consent,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83, no. 2 (2009): 302–30, at 305. Stokes, a medical ethicist, was concerned with unnecessary abdominal operations, but he does not mention consent. William Stokes, “The Ethics of Surgery,” Dublin Journal of Medical Science, no. 98 (1893): 369–83, at 383.

44 TNA, HO 45/9879/B15780/4, Letter from Parkes, in Letter to Asquith, Secretary of State, from Chelsea Vestry Clerk, 22 February 1894. On 2 October and 9 October 1895, the Chelsea Hospital committee discussed the problem of patients’ consent not being entered into the record book and cases where no consent was given by friends. House Committee Minutes, 1894–5, Chelsea Hospital for Women, H27/CW/A/04, LMA.

45 “Hospital Surgeons and the Public,” Star (London), 7 October 1897. The same year, Nurse Beatty sued over an operation performed without her consent. “Beatty Versus Cullingworth,” Personal Rights, 15 December 1896; Brock, “Risk, Responsibility and Surgery,” 87; Frampton, Belly-Rippers, 147.

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57 TNA, HO 45/9879/B15780/8, poster, “Men and Women of England.”

58 TNA, HO 45/9879/B15780, newspaper clipping, 3 February 1896, “Chelsea Hospital for Women—Death of Kate Wellman in Chelsea Hospital for Women.”

59 J. L. Clifford-Smith, ed., Hospital Management: Being the Authorised Report of a Conference on the Administration of Hospitals Held under the Auspices of the Social Science Conference (London, 1883), 34; “Working Men and Hospitals,” Reynolds's Newspaper (London), 26 May 1889; Michael Millman, “The Influence of the Social Science Association on Hospital Planning in Victorian England,” Medical History 18, no. 2 (1974): 122–37.

60 Emanuel Montefiore, The Need for a Central Hospital Board (London, 1895), 203.

61 Keir Waddington, “Unsuitable Cases: The Debate over Outpatient Admissions, the Medical Profession and Late-Victorian London Hospitals,” Medical History 42, no. 1 (1998): 26–46, at 32; Roger Cooter, “Medicine and Modernity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine, ed. Mark Jackson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 100–14; Henry C. Burdett, Hospitals and Asylums of the World, vol. 3, Hospitals: History and Administration (London, 1893), 56; “Hospital Reform Enquiry,” Birmingham Daily Post, 30 October 1890; “The Hospital Reform Committee: To the Editor of the Daily Post,” Birmingham Daily Post, 24 November 1890; “Hospital Reform Committee,” Birmingham Daily Post, 17 July 1890; “The Hospital Reform Inquiry,” Birmingham Daily Post, 24 July 1890; Committee on the Hospital Reform Enquiry, Hospital Reform, Birmingham (Birmingham, 1891); H. C. Tweedy, “Some Points in Connection with the Administration of Hospital Relief,” Dublin Journal of Medical Science 97, no. 6 (1894): 490–97, at 490.

62 Alfred Egmont Hake, Suffering London: Or, the Hygiene, Moral, Social, and Political Relations of Our Voluntary Hospitals to Society (London, 1892), 48; see also Waddington, Charity and the London Hospitals.

63 A. W. H. Bates, “Boycotted Hospital: The National Anti-Vivisection Hospital, London, 1903–1935,” Journal of Animal Ethics 6, no. 2 (2016): 177–87.

64 Claire Brock, British Women Surgeons and Their Patients, 1860–1918 (Cambridge, 2017), 48.

65 Honnor Morten, “Hospital Chaos,” National Review 34 (1899): 734–38, at 734.

66 Keir Waddington, “Subscribing to a Democracy? Management and the Voluntary Ideology of the London Hospitals, 1850–1900,” English Historical Review 118, no. 476 (2003): 357–79, at 357–60; Steven Cherry, “Accountability, Entitlement, and Control Issues and Voluntary Hospital Funding C. 1860–1939,” Social History of Medicine 9, no. 2 (1996): 217; G. S. Lewis, “Working Class Representation,” Worcestershire Chronicle, 8 April 1893; “Kidderminster Infirmary and Working-Class Representation,” Worcestershire Chronicle, 16 May 1896; “The Complaint against the West London Hospital,” West London Observer, 22 September 1888; “The Maintenance of Hospitals,” Justice (London), 16 June 1888. See also letter from H. Venman to Charles Loch, 20 December 1881, Provident Medical Institution, A/FWA/C/D/38/1, LMA. The Hospital Saturday Fund gave £383 to the London Hospital and in return claimed the right to nominate a life governor; House Committee Minutes, 1880–1882, London Hospital, 3 January 1882, LH/A/5/40, RLHA.

67 For general discussion, see House of Lords Select Committee on Metropolitan Hospitals, 2nd Report, 1891–2, 617. For a Dublin example, see 11 November 1898, Directors Minute Book of City of Dublin Hospital Baggot Street, 1897–1900, PRIV/1272/1/4, National Archives Ireland. For London Hospital example, see House Committee Minutes, 1880–1882, London Hospital, 3 January 1882, LH/A/5/40, RLHA.

68 “When the Hospital Saturday Fund [. . .],” Truth (London), 21 February 1895.

69 Samuel Augustus Barnett, Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform (London, 1895), 250; Samuel Augustus Barnett, “A Friendly Criticism of the Charity Organisation Society,” Charity Organisation Review, no. 11 (1895): 338–44, at 338.

70 “The Maintenance of Hospitals,” Justice (London), 16 June 1888

71 “Hospital Politics,” The Speaker (London) 1891), 367; Sidney Webb, The Reform of the Poor Law (Manchester, 1891), 13–14; Havelock Ellis, The Nationalisation of Health (London, 1892), 52.

72 Barrow and Bullock, Democratic Ideas, 35.

73 H. J. Channon, “An Old Queenian—The Late Dr. Harry Roberts,” Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, 7 December 1946. Roberts argued against the poor law's deterrent approach. See also Harry Roberts, “Consumption and the Poor Law,” British Journal of Tuberculosis 5, no. 1 (1911): 39–41. Harry Roberts also wrote a tract, “Population and Social Reform,” first given as a talk for the Fabians in 1891; see “News,” Fabian News 1, no. 5 (1891): 19. He edited a compilation of the writings of socialist poet Edward Carpenter, The Simplification of Life: From the Writings of Edward Carpenter, ed. Harry Roberts (London, 1905).

74 Hulda Friederichs, “The Story of ‘I Was in Prison’: The Story of Miss Honnor Morten,” Young Woman, no. 8 (1899–1900): 302–7, at 302; Ellis, The Nationalisation of Health; Roberts, Public Control of Hospitals. See also Morten, “Hospital Chaos,” 394–420; Honnor Morten, The Municipalisation of Hospitals, Reprinted from the Humane Review (London, 1902); Honnor Morten, “Questions for Women—the Prisons,” Queen (UK), 4 March 1899.

75 Ellis, The Nationalisation of Health; Roberts, Public Control of Hospitals; Morten, “Hospital Chaos,” 394–420; The Municipalisation of Hospitals, Reprinted from the Humane Review (London, 1902). Morten announced her lectures in 1896 and presented them in March 1897; “News,” Fabian News 5, no. 1 (March 1896): 40. “News,” Fabian News 7, no. 1 (1897): 313.

76 Ellis, Nationalisation of Health, 74.

77 Roberts, Public Control of Hospitals, 3; Morten, “Hospital Chaos,” 745.

78 Morten, The Municipalisation of Hospitals, 7.

79 Ellis, Nationalisation of Health, 75.

80 Roberts, Public Control of Hospitals, 25, 22.

81 Morten, “Hospital Chaos,” 741–46;.

82 Kean, “The ‘Smooth Cool Men of Science,’” 79; Leela Gandhi, Affective Communities; Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship (Durham, 2006), 77.

83 Annual Report of the Humanitarian League (London, 1895): 1; J. C. Kenworthy, “The Rights of Man and the Rights of Animal,” Humanity, no. 9 (1895): 66–68.

84 Honner Morton, “Eating the Apple,” in Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, ed. Ellen Ross (Berkeley, 2007), 161–71, at 170. Ellen Ross's introduction to this piece is an excellent account of Morten's life (161–65).

85 Eva Luckes, Hospital Sisters and Their Duties (London, 1893), 55. See also Eva Luckes, Lectures on General Nursing, Delivered to the Probationers at London Hospital (London, 1884), 1.

86 Charles Rosenberg argues that Nightingale did not believe in the germ theory, but, according to Lynn Macdonald, she had been convinced by 1885. Charles E. Rosenberg, “Florence Nightingale on Contagion: The Hospital as a Moral Universe,” in Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine, ed. Charles Rosenberg (New York, 1979), 115–36; Lynn Macdonald, Florence Nightingale at First Hand: Vision, Power, Legacy (London, 2010), 102.

87 Carol Helmstadter, “Building a New Nursing Service: Respectability and Efficiency in Victorian England,” Albion 35, no. 4 (2004): 590–621, at 619; Carol Helmstadter and Judith Godden, Nursing before Nightingale, 1815–1899 (2016), 42; Rosenberg, “Florence Nightingale on Contagion,” 115–36; Alison Bashford, “Female Bodies at Work: Gender and the Re-forming of Colonial Hospitals,” Australian Cultural History, no. 13 (1995): 65–81.

88 Sue Hawkins, Nursing and Women's Labour in the Nineteenth Century: The Quest for Independence (London, 2012).

89 For examples, see London House Committee notes, 18 March 1879, fol. 144, House Committee Minutes; 12 October 1880, fol. 44, 20 October 1880, fol. 53; 7 December 1880, fol. 90, House Committee Minutes, 1880–1882, London Hospital, LH/A/5/39, RLHA.

90 For the class of nurses, see Henry C. Burdett, “Hospital Nursing,” Fraser's Magazine, no. 607 (1880): 112–25, at 124.

91 S. Messenger Bradley, “Miss Lonsdale on the Present Crisis at Guy's Hospital,” British Medical Journal, 17, no. 1007 (1880): 605–6; Margaret Lonsdale, “The Present Crisis at Guy's Hospital,” Nineteenth Century, no. 7 (April 1880): 677–84, at 687. See also Keir Waddington, “The Nursing Dispute at Guy's Hospital, 1879–1880,” Social History of Medicine 8, no. 2 (1995): 211–30.

92 “Charge against Hospital Nurse,” Reynolds's Newspaper (London), 1 August 1880.

93 “St. Saviour's Guardians,” South London Press, 18 September 1880.

94 “St. Saviour's Guardians,” South London Press, 11 September 1880; “Guy's Hospital,” South London Press, 16 October 1880.

95 Bill Blades, “Words from the Workshop,” Reynolds's Newspaper (London), 1 August 1880; “Guy's Hospital Scandal,” South London Press, 36 June 1880.

96 Anna Clark, “Domestic Servants and the Labour Movement, 1870s–1914,” in Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present, ed. Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Béliard (Manchester, 2018), 83–98, at 90–93.

97 Ellen Ross, “Morten, (Violet) Honnor (1861–1913), Nurse and Journalist,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/62035.

98 For registration, see Eva Luckes, What the British Nurses’ Association Is, and What It Seeks to Do for Nurses (London, 1889), 2–3; D. P. Griffon, “‘Crowning the Edifice’: Ethel Fenwick and State Registration,” Nursing History Review, no. 3 (1995): 201–12. For nurses’ health, see Sturdy and Cooter, “Science, Scientific Management,” 405; Debbie Palmer, Who Cared for the Carers? A History of the Occupational Health of Nurses, 1880–1948 (2015).

99 “Does London Hospital Sweat Its Nurses—An Interview with Mrs. Robert Hunter,” Pall Mall Gazette, 5 September 1890; “The Truth about the London Hospital—I,” Pall Mall Gazette, 18 July 1893; “The Truth about the London Hospital—III,” Pall Mall Gazette, 22 July 1893; “The Truth about the London Hospital—IV,” Pall Mall Gazette, 26 July 1893; “At a London Hospital,” Pall Mall Gazette, 10 January 1892; “Hospital Management,” Pall Mall Gazette, 12 January 1892.

100 “The Nurses’ Bitter Cry,” Morning Leader (London), 28 July–6 August 1892, in London Hospital Press Clippings, 1891–1894, London Hospital, LH/A/26/6 RLHA (hereafter Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA); Andrew Mearns, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (London, 1883).

101 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Metropolitan Hospitals, Parliamentary Papers, 1890 (392) 16:297–437.

102 “White Slavery in Hospitals,” Pall Mall Gazette, 3 April 1889.

103 Morning Leader (London), 4 August 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

104 “Nurses’ Bitter Cry,” Morning Leader (London), 12 August 1892; Newsom Kerr, Contagion, Isolation, 67.

105 “Nurses,” Pall Mall Gazette, 5 March 1891.

106 Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Metropolitan Hospitals, Parliamentary Papers, 1890 (392), 16:297, 332.

107 “Nurses’ Bitter Cry,” Morning Leader (London), 4, 5, 12 August 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

108 Star (London), 9 January 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

109 Morning Leader (London), 4 August 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

110 Editorial (newspaper not identified), 10 December 1891, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

111 Eva Luckes and Sydney Holland, Correspondence, 1896, London Hospital, LH/A/17/64, RLHA.

112 “Nurses’ Bitter Cry,” Morning Leader (London), 3 August 1892, 9 August 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

113 “Nurses’ Bitter Cry,” Morning Leader (London), 6 August 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

114 “A Well-Known Philanthropist,” Morning Leader (London), 12 August 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

115 “A Municipal Socialist, Letter to the Editor,” Evening News and Post (London), 22 September 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RHLA.

116 Morten, “Hospital Chaos,” 745.

117 The Maori could vote in the general electorate if they had individual property and lived according to white standards, but local officials usually prevented their voting. Neill Atkinson, Adventures in Democracy: A History of the Vote in New Zealand, Turnbull (2003), 50–59.

118 W. H. Oliver, “Social Welfare: Social Justice or Social Efficiency?,” New Zealand Journal of History 13, no. 1 (1979): 25–33; D. A. Hamer, The New Zealand Liberals (Auckland, 1988), 40; Bassett, The State in New Zealand: Socialism without Doctrines?, 100; David Thomson, A World without Welfare: New Zealand's Colonial Experiment (Auckland, 1998), 120; Michael Belgrave, “Needs and the State. Evolving Social Policy in New Zealand History,” in Past Judgment: Social Policy in New Zealand History, ed. Bronwyn Dalley (Dunedin, 2004), 28; John Cooper, The British Welfare Revolution, 1906–14 (London, 2017), 142.

119 Erik Olssen, Building the New World: Work, Politics and Society in Caversham, 1880s–1920s (Auckland, 1995), 348.

120 Tom Brooking, “‘Busting up’ the Greatest Estate of All: Liberal Maori Land Policy, 1891–1911,” New Zealand Journal of History 26, no. 1 (1992): 78–98, at 90; Margaret Tennant, “Mixed Economy or Moving Priorities?,” in Dalley and Tennant, Past Judgment, 39–55, at 41.

121 Ngati Pikiao, Letter to the Governor of New Zealand, 30 January 1850, 1850, Grey New Zealand Maori Letters—Ngā reta Māori, GNZMA 687, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/manuscripts/id/4060/rec/2.

122 Derek Dow, “‘Specially Suitable Men?’ Subsidized Medical Services for Maori, 1840–1940 (New Zealand),” New Zealand Journal of History 32, no. 2 (1998): 163–88, at 185; Buddy Mikaere, Te Maiharoa and the Promised Land (Wellington, 1997), 22; Vincent O'Malley and David Anderson Armstrong, The Beating Heart: A Political and Socio-Economic History of Te Arawa (Wellington, 2008), 261; H. K. Taiaroa, “ Statement by H. K. Taiaroa, M.H.R., on the Report by Judge Fenton on the Petition of the Ngaitahu Tribe,” 1875 Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, G-07b (Wellington, 1876); “Report re the Land Comprised in the Deeds of Messrs Wakefield Kemp and Mantell,” 1870, Native Department, MA67/7, Archives New Zealand Wellington; C. Hunter Brown, “Respecting Middle Island Matters,” 1865, MA67/7, Archives New Zealand Wellington; Dr. John Johnson, “Re: Advantages to Be Derived from a Native Hospital,” 1842, Colonial Department, 1842/864, Archives New Zealand Wellington; Memoranda from Notes of Sir George Grey's Speeches to Natives at Korerareka, Kerikeri, Waimate, Hokianga, 1861, 1861/150, Archives New Zealand Wellington.

123 Raeburn Lange, May the People Live: A History of Maori Health Development, 1900–1920 Auckland, (1999), 36; Katrina Ford, “Race, Disease and Public Health: Perceptions of Māori Health,” in The Routledge History of Disease, ed. Mark Jackson (London, 2016), 239–56, at 239.

124 New Zealand Department of Health, A Health Service for New Zealand (Wellington, 1974), 12.

125 John H. Angus, A History of the Otago Hospital Board and Its Predecessors (Dunedin, 1984), 100; Margaret Tennant, The Fabric of Welfare: Voluntary Organisations, Government and Welfare in New Zealand, 1840–2005 (Wellington, 2007), 32.

126 Mr. Hutchinson, “Hospital and Charitable Institutions Bill,” New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1880, 35:84; F. O. Bennett, “The Shadow of My Neighbour,” n.d., Bennett, MS Papers 10753-1, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

127 Hester Mclean, Nursing in New Zealand (Wellington, 1932), 47.

128 “Hospital Inquiry,” Star (Christchurch), 15 January 1885; “Christchurch Hospital Libel Case,” Press (Christchurch), 25 March 1886.

129 For a similar scandal in Dunedin about inadequate nursing and facilities, see “Report and Papers Relating to the Dunedin Hospital Inquiry,” 1891, MS-2317, Hocken Library, Dunedin; Katrina Ford, “The Tyranny of the Microbe: Microbial Mentalities in New Zealand, C.1880–1915” (PhD, University of Auckland, 2013), 79.

130 “Hospital Inquiry,” Star (Christchurch), 29 March 1895.

131 In 1892, a nurse wrote to Detective Broham alerting him that doctors were “getting nurses in the family way” and aborting them. The nurse did not seem to have been hostile to abortion per se, for she referred to “poor Dr. Russell,” an African-American doctor in Christchurch who was repeatedly prosecuted for performing abortions. But she was concerned that a doctor tried to perform an abortion on a nurse who became severely ill afterwards. See Record of Proceeding in Criminal Cases in Christchurch Resident Magistrates’ Court, 1887, CAHX, CH 132 20318, Box 1, Archives New Zealand Canterbury; Detective Benjamin's Report Regarding Alleged Malpractices at Christchurch Hospital, 1892–1895, Police Department, 1895/884, Archives New Zealand Wellington; Charles James Russell, Charge of Illegal Abortion, 1898, R24469998–P1 1898/275, Archives New Zealand Wellington.

132 He ended his career at Eketahuna. For a resume of his career, see the entry “Murray-Aynsley, J. H.,” under “Government Offices,” The Cyclopedia of New Zealand online, 2016, http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc01Cycl-t1-body-d4-d94-d3.html#Cyc01Cycl-fig-Cyc01Cycl0998a. He was a great-great-grandson of the Duke of Atholl. See entries at The Peerage for his father, Hugh Murray-Aynsley, http://www.thepeerage.com/p2268.htm#i22673; his grandfather, John Murray-Aynsley, http://www.thepeerage.com/p2246.htm#i22456; and his great-grandfather, the Very Rev. Lord Charles Murray-Aynsley, http://www.thepeerage.com/p2223.htm#i22226 (all entries last updated 9 November 2020).

133 Dr. J. H. Murray-Aynsley, “Death under Chloroform,” New Zealand Journal of Medicine, no. 8 (1895): 259, reprinted in Medical News 68, no. 1 (1896): 18.

134 “The Hospital Inquiry,” Press (Christchurch), 11 June 1895.

135 Editorial, Press (Christchurch), 23 April 1896, 3; editorial, Lyttelton Times, 24 April 1896, quoted in Patricia A. Sargison, “A History of Nursing in New Zealand” (PhD diss., University of Otago, 2001), 68.

136 Tongariro, “The Hospital—Letter to the Editor,” Star (Christchurch), 22 January 1895.

137 “Christchurch Hospital Miscellaneous Registers—North Canterbury Hospital Board Minutes,” 1895, CATV, CH293, Box 224, Archives New Zealand Christchurch.

138 F. O. Bennett, Hospital on the Avon (Christchurch, 1962), 106.

139 Margaret Tennant, “Mrs. Grace Neill in the Department of Asylums, Hospitals and Charitable Institutions,” New Zealand Journal of History 12, no. 1 (1978): 3–16; Grace Neill, “Women and State Relief in New Zealand: International Congress of Women 1899,” in Women in Politics, ed. E. S. Lidgett (London, 1900), 84–87, at 85.

140 “The Hospital Inquiry,” Press (Christchurch), 28 March 1895. See also “Christchurch Hospital,” Star (Christchurch), 7 June 1895; Board Meeting, 27 March 1895, 3 April 1895, Christchurch Hospital Miscellaneous Registers—North Canterbury Hospital Board Minutes, 1895, CATV, CH293, Box 224, Archives New Zealand Christchurch.

141 “The Hospital Question,” Star (Christchurch) 8 April 1895; see also “The Hospital Inquiry,” Lyttelton Times, 28 March 1895; “Christchurch Hospital,” Press (Christchurch), 8 April 1895.

142 Knights of Labour Rawhiti Assembly Minute Book, 1890, MS 747A, Hocken Collection, University of Otago Library; A. E. Newton, The Better Way: An Appeal to All in Behalf of Human Culture (Christchurch, 1894); Rules of the Collinsville Co-operative Society Ltd., 1894, Collinsville Papers, MS-Papers-5357, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; “Progressive Liberal Association,” Press (Christchurch), 13 April 1895; J[ane] Hume Clapperton, Letter to Kate Sheppard, 6 Dec. 1894, Kate Sheppard Papers, 176/53, fol. 254, Canterbury Museum, K. Walker and J. R. Wilkinson, Notes on Dress Reform, and What It Implies (Christchurch, 1893); “Rev. J. O'Bryen Hoare at Tuam Street Hall,” Press (Christchurch), 25 October 1893; “Christchurch Notes: The Van Breda Letter, Dismissal of Prof. Aldis, the Hon. Mr. Reeves on Labour Contracts,” Auckland Star, 20 June 1893; William Pember Reeves, Communism and Socialism: Their Dreams, Their Experiments, Their Aims, Their Influence, by Pharos (Christchurch, 1890); Lucy Sargisson and Lyman Tower Sargent, Living in Utopia: Intentional Communities in New Zealand (Aldershot, 2004), 24.

143 Halina Ogonowska-Coates, “The Labour Movement in Canterbury, 1880–1893 (MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 2005), 75.

144 “The Christchurch Hospital,” Press, 8 April 1895.

145 Katie Pickles, “Workers and Workplaces—Industry and Modernity,” in Southern Capital: Christchurch: Towards a City Biography, 1850–2000, ed. Graeme Dunstall and J. E. Cookson (Christchurch, 2000), 138–61, at 144.

146 “Christchurch Hospital,” Star (Christchurch), 29 March 1895.

147 “Christchurch Hospital,” Star (Christchurch), 1 April 1895.

148 “Christchurch Hospital,” Star (Christchurch), 30 March 1895. For a similar scandal in South Australia at the Adelaide Hospital, where a conservative medical establishment fired nurses only to run afoul of the radical Liberal government, see “A State-Supported Hospital,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 857 (1896): 862–63; “A Ministerial Crisis,” South Australia Register, 15 February 1896; Donald Simpson, “Adelaide Hospital Row,” SA History Hub, History Trust Australia, http://sahhistoryhub.com.au/subjects/adelaide -hospital-row.

149 Dougherty, Molly C. and Tripp-Reimer, Toni, “The Interface of Nursing and Anthropology,” Annual Review of Anthropology 14, no. 1 (1985): 219–41, at 222CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

150 Bennett, Hospital on the Avon, 112–17.

151 Giles, Report of Inquiry, 7.

152 “Christchurch Hospital,” Lyttelton Herald, 11 June 1895.

153 Giles, Report of Inquiry, 12.

154 “Christchurch Hospital,” Lyttelton Times, 11 June 1895.

155 “The Hospital Inquiry,” Star (Christchurch), 7 June 1895 (quoting Mr. Joynt, who was speaking on behalf of reforming organizations).

156 “Christchurch Hospital,” Star (Christchurch), 8 April 1895.

157 “Christchurch Hospital,” Colonist (Nelson), 8 April 1895.

158 Henry Ell, Diary—Newspaper Clippings, 1890, Henry Ell Papers, Arch 202/3/1, Box 3, Christchurch City Library Archives. See also Ell, Henry, The Will of the People through the Initiative and Referendum (Christchurch, 1902), 2Google Scholar.

159 “Minutes of the Socialist Church,” 1901, Herbert Roth Papers, 94-107-07/03, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; “National Council of Women,” Wanganui Chronicle, 18 May 1901.

160 “The Hospital Board,” editorial, Gisborne Times, 5 March 1910.

161 Gustafson, Barry, Labour's Path to Political Independence: Origins and Establishment of the New Zealand Labour Party, 1900–19 (Auckland, 2013), 110Google Scholar.

162 “Considerations of the Hospital Bill,” New Zealand Times, 21 May 1908; “Our Hospitals,” Poverty Bay Herald, 3 November 1909.

163 General Conference (Report of the) Held under the Provisions of “the Maori Councils Act, 1900.”Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1903 Session I, G-01 (Wellington, 1903).

164 In Christchurch, Elizabeth McCombs, a Fabian Socialist and temperance advocate, was elected to the hospital board in 1915, and a Mrs. Christie was elected in 1917. “Mayoralty,” Maoriland Worker (NZ), 5 May 1915, 16 May 1917.

165 “Waimate,” Timaru Herald, 8 April 1909; “The Hospitals Bill: Action of City Council,” Lyttelton Times, 16 November 1909; “Charitable Institutions,” Southland Times, 25 November 1909; “Election of Hospital Boards,” Otago Daily Times, 10 April 1909.

166 New Zealand Department of Health, Health Service for New Zealand, 41.

167 Pat Thane, “Labour and Local Politics: Radicalism, Democracy and Social Reform, 1880–1914,” in Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1850–1914, ed. Eugenio F. Biagini and Alastair J. Reid (Cambridge, 1991), 244–70, at 251.

168 Price, Kim, Medical Negligence in Victorian Britain: The Crisis of Care under the English Poor Law, C.1834–1900 (London, 2015), 34Google Scholar; “Nursing in Workhouse Infirmaries,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 1865 (1896): 857–862, at 857.

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170 “Nursing Echoes,” Nursing Record 15, no. 392 (1895): 231–33, at 232.

171 Bermondsey Board of Guardians Minute Books, 1895, p. 921, BBG/066, LMA; Ritch, Alistair, Sickness in the Workhouse: Poor Law Medical Care in Provincial England, 1834–1914 (London, 2019), 189Google Scholar.

172 29 August 1895, Letter from Matron, Bermondsey Board of Guardians Minute Books, BBG/066, LMA; “Guardians and Matron,” South London Press, 28 September 1895.

173 2 March 1895, Bermondsey Board of Guardians Minute Books, BBG/066, LMA; “Hospital Experiments,” Star (London), 1 November 1894; “A Word to Hospital Doctors,” Star (London), 13 March 1895; “Anti-toxin, from a Patient's Point of View,” Echo (London), 1 February 1896; Clippings on Vivisection, 1894–99, Lister Institute, SA/LIS/E.8, Wellcome Library, London.

174 Newsom Kerr, Contagion, Isolation, 310.

175 “Spies in Meliora, Popular Blindness–VI,” Echo (London), 25 June 1895; “Clippings on Vivisection.”

176 Letter to the Editor, Star (London), 4 January1895.

177 Weindling, Paul, “From Isolation to Therapy: Children's Hospitals and Diphtheria in Fin de Siècle Paris, London and Berlin,” in In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, ed. Cooter, Roger (London, 2013), 124–45, at 140Google Scholar.

178 Evening News Post (London), 10 October 1892, Clippings, LH/A/26/6, RLHA.

179 “Belfast Royal Hospital,” Brotherhood (Belfast), 31 May 1890. As Newsom Kerr points out (personal communication), this was a long-running theme. See Sigsworth, Michael and Worboys, Michael, “The Public's View of Public Health in Mid-Victorian Britain,” Urban History 21, no. 2 (1994): 237–50, at 249CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

180 “Birmingham Trades Council,” Birmingham Post, 8 December 1890.

181 “Municipal Hospitals,” Fabian Tracts, vol. 95 (London, 1900), 1–3.

182 Foster, B. Walter, “Address in Medicine:The Public Aspects of Medicine,” British Medical Journal 2, no. 1544 (1890): 263–67, at 267CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Durbach, Bodily Matters, 167.

183 F. W. Jowett, “Notes on the Conference at Hull,” Clarion (UK), 24 January 1908.

184 Sidney Webb, The State and the Doctor, ed. Beatrice Webb (London, 1910), 207.

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190 Newsom Kerr, Contagion, Isolation, 295.