Emily Gertrude Hibbert

Born 1863, died 1897
Nurse at the Mitford and Launditch Union Workhouse, 1892 - 1895
Researched by Nicola Sheard

Emily Hibbert was born in 1863 in Cork, Ireland. She was daughter to Thomas and Sarah Ann Hibbert, both born in Manchester. Thomas Hibbert was a soldier in the British Armed Forces and records show he was posted to Ireland and Malta. After he left the Armed Forces, Thomas worked as a butcher in Lambeth, Surrey.

Emily completed a year’s probationary nursing at the Brownlow Hill Poor Law Infirmary, Liverpool from 3rd December 1891 to 3rd December 1892. The Brownlow Hill Poor Law Infirmary holds a significant place in workhouse history as it pioneered the use of trained Nurses in the Workhouse Infirmary.

Emily commenced her duties as a Nurse at the Mitford and Launditch Union Workhouse on 23rd December 1892. She was paid £22 per annum plus board, lodging and washing. The appointment form noted that Emily brought with her a letter from Miss Wilson, the Honorary Secretary of the Workhouse Infirmary Nursing Association as proof of competency to perform efficiently all the duties appertaining to this office.

Nurses who were members of the Workhouse Infirmary Nursing Association were known as Mary Adelaide Nurses, so named after the association’s president Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck. Emily Hibbert received a Mary Adelaide medal at the annual gathering of the Workhouse Nursing Association in 1894.

On December 29th 1894, The British Medical Journal published a report entitled ‘The Nursing and Administration of Provincial Workhouses and Infirmaries, Mitford and Launditch, Norfolk. Emily Hibbert was ‘the second Nurse’ referred to in the report. “The head Nurse is a certificated midwife, and either the second Nurse or the probationer is on night duty. Pauper help is used to a certain extent, but the Nurses make the beds of such patients as are confined to bed, and are responsible for the nursing; and we must bear in mind that thirty-nine patients, more than half of the total number on the medical relief book, are quite helpless”.

The Mitford and Launditch staff log recorded that Emily Hibbert resigned in January 1895 with ‘no cause stated’. She died in Wigan, Lancashire in the fourth quarter of 1897 aged just 34.