Project Background
St George's marked the 250th anniversary of the medical school and hospital with a number of exciting historical retrospectives. These included an oral history based on nursing memories by the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences at Kingston University and St George's Hospital Medical School (now St Georges, University of London).
Documents and photographs can only tell so much of the story of the hospital, and we have captured the living history of St George's over the past seven decades through the memories of the group that in many ways have defined its character - the nurses. Hospital histories have traditionally concentrated on buildings and celebrated physicians and surgeons, but patients' experience on the ward or in outpatients has more often been dependant on intimate contact with the nursing staff. The stories of those who feature so much in the treatment of patients, but who are so often unremarked in official accounts of the institution, have now been told.
Our objective was to collect interviews with individuals who trained or worked (or are still working) as nurses or midwives at St George's, covering all aspects of the nursing experience. We have been able to cover a period ranging from the early 1930s right through to today, collecting memories as diverse as the introduction of the National Health Service, the impact of the move to Tooting from Hyde Park Comer, or the experience of being in charge of a ward at night for the first time. Certainly memories of social life (or lack of it), living conditions in hospital accommodation, and memories of the recruitment interview all helped to build a picture of what it was like to be a St George's nurse. For instance, did you know that in the early 1950s the Matron included the ability to play tennis in the list of attributes required of potential St George's nurses?