Ethel Gordon Fenwick

Ethel Gordon Fenwick (née Manson; 26 January 1857 – 13 March 1947) was a British nurse who played a major role in the history of nursing in the United Kingdom. She campaigned to procure a nationally recognised certificate for nursing, to safeguard the title "nurse", and lobbied Parliament to pass a law to control nursing and limit it to "registered" nurses only.

Biography

She was born Ethel Gordon Manson in Spynie, near the Moray town of Elgin in Scotland, the daughter of a wealthy farmer and doctor who died later the same year. Her mother then married George Storer, a member of Parliament. She was educated privately at Middlethorpe Hall, Middlethorpe, Yorkshire. At the age of 21 she commenced nurse training at the Children's Hospital in Nottingham as a paying probationer nurse, and then at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Her expertise was soon noted and it was not long before she left for London, where she worked at a hospital in Richmond. Fenwick was a ward sister at The London Hospital in Whitechapel between 1879 and 1881, and for the last six months worked under Eva Luckes, the new matron.

In 1881, at the age of 24, she was appointed matron of St Bartholomew's Hospital, a post she held until 1887 when she resigned her post to marry Dr Bedford Fenwick, becoming known professionally as Mrs Bedford Fenwick. Her successor was Isla Stewart, with whom she became close friends and an ally in the campaign for nursing registration.