Arpan K. Banerjee
Solihull, England

When asked to name a famous nurse from the past, the most common name that rolls off people’s lips is nearly always Florence Nightingale. Sadly, many other pioneering nurses from yesteryear remain forgotten in spite of major contributions to their profession. In this new biography, the life of the pioneering nurse from Scotland, Rebecca Strong, has now been told.

Rebecca Strong was one of the first nurses to take a patient’s temperature. She also made major inroads into structured nurse training that today we take for granted. Born in London on 23rd of August 1843, she was widowed young at the age of twenty and started training under Florence Nightingale at St Thomas’s Hospital in London in 1867. The nursing school at St Thomas’s had only recently opened in 1860. She continued her training at Winchester Hospital and the Army Hospital in Netley before moving to Dundee, Scotland, where she was appointed matron.

In 1879, she was persuaded to take up the post of matron at the larger Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland. Here she campaigned for better training for nurses, including elementary courses in anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. This was to be followed by more practical training on the wards. She was not scared of making herself unpopular with management to achieve her aims.

In 1893, she succeeded in setting up a practical training course in Glasgow with the support of Sir William Macewen, the father of Scottish neurosurgery, who was impressed by her abilities and determination. She strongly believed nurses should be state-registered, and she campaigned relentlessly to improve working conditions for nurses. She retired in 1907. In her retirement, she remained an inveterate traveller, attending international nurse congresses as far afield as Canada, Egypt, and Palestine, and gave numerous addresses.

In 1926 she played a part in setting up the British College of Nurses, an organisation to assist postgraduate nurse development and training. She was appointed OBE in 1939. She died on 26 April 1944, aged 100 years.

In this book, the author describes the life of this remarkable woman whose vision and tenacity enabled the training of nurses to be improved, not only in Glasgow but worldwide, with her revolutionary ideas implemented into the training of nurses all over the world.

The book is well written, with black and white illustrations and references, and is an important contribution to the history of nursing pioneers.

The Woman Who Revolutionised Nurses’ Training: The Life and Career of Rebecca Strong
Judith Vallely
Pen and Sword Books Ltd, England
ISBN 978139961650