Annie Collin

Born 1908, died 1990
Assistant Nurse, Gressenhall Public Assistance Institution, 1932 - 1933

Researched by Bridget Howarth

Annie was born in Whittlesey in the fens of Cambridgeshire and baptised in Littleport. Her father was a ‘pressman’ or ‘strawpresser’. By 1921 though the family had moved to Littleport to help Annie’s widowed grandmother who was licensee of the Rising Sun Inn.

The minutes of the Guardians meeting in August 1932 confirmed Annie’s appointment at Gressenhall as Assistant Nurse with a salary of £50 per annum, with a £4 uniform allowance and board and lodging.  She started work in September but resigned, as Senior Assistant Nurse, in April 1933.  No reason was recorded.

Unfortunately, no record can be found of Annie’s nursing training. Family members suggest that, before coming to Gressenhall, she worked at Guys Hospital in London and it is possible that she qualified there.  It is also suggested that she worked for some time at the Wayland Hospital, near Attleborough, which was built as the infirmary for the workhouse there, but once again no source has been found to confirm this.

Annie left Gressenhall to get married. Her husband, (Albert) Leslie Brett, was born and brought up in Deopham, near Wymondham. In 1921 he was a ploughman at Crown Farm where his father was Farm Bailiff.  In 1939, Annie and Leslie were living, with 3 children, on Willow Farm in Morley St Botolph, where Leslie was an agricultural labourer.

Annie’s husband, Leslie, died in 1973 and Annie herself in 1990. She is buried in Deopham.