Elizabeth Flood

Born 1835, died around 1914
Nurse at Mitford and Launditch Union Workhouse, 1870 - 1874

Researched by Bridget Howarth

Elizabeth was the daughter of a farmer. She was born in Stanfield and baptised on the Primitive Methodist circuit in Fakenham. In 1851 they were living in Thursford, where her father had a farm with 110 acres and a brickkiln. Elizabeth’s daughter, Margaret Browne Pegg Flood, was born in 1857 although she did not marry William Brown Flood, who we might assume to be the father, until the autumn of 1858. They lived in Thursford Green where William was an agricultural labourer, and Elizabeth a dressmaker.  William died in 1863, leaving Elizabeth a widow with a 6-year-old child.

Elizabeth returned to Stanfield and took a job as a cook and housekeeper at the Rectory until she applied for a nursing post at Gressenhall. She started work in March 1870 with a salary of £20 per annum, with board, lodging and washing and a shilling a week allowance for beer. Elizabeth was not a trained nurse but worked with Sarah Mitchell, a nurse at Gressenhall since January 1863 and who would have been reliable source of help and advice. They were both on call at all times of day and night, ready to deal with any kind of sickness or infirmity, from fever and infectious disorders to the diseases of poverty and decay. Smallpox, scarlet fever and typhus would all have been a constant worry. Elizabeth will also have covered Sarah’s duties when she was called away to act as midwife in the lying in ward, and to be on hand to help the Medical Officer with surgical procedures and other interventions as required.  While Elizabeth was at Gressenhall, work began on a new infirmary, a separate fever and isolation ward, and flushing lavatories and running water were installed.

Elizabeth stayed at Gressenhall Workhouse for four years but may not have been an easy person to work with. In February 1874, the minutes record the decision to dispense with her services ‘by reason of her repeated acts of insubordination’. We don’t know where she went from here, but she may have been working for a doctor in Hetherset in 1881. A Beatrice Elizabeth Browne Hood/Flood, born in Stanfield at around the right time, who gave her occupation as ‘Trained Nurse’ was recorded in the census that year.   

Elizabeth married again in Stanfield, on 17 March 1886, with her daughter as a witness.  Her husband, John Crane, was a gardener, but they later moved to Aylsham and took on the licence of the Royal Oak.  By 1901 the couple had moved to Ingworth and they were ‘living on their own means’. John died in the autumn of 1906 leaving Elizabeth a widow once more and she returned again to Stanfield, where her daughter had a grocery shop.  More sadness followed in the summer of 1910, when Margaret died.

Elizabeth appears in the 1911 census living on her own, with ‘no occupation’ and probably died in the Spring of 1914 though no burial record has been found.