Admin History | Introduction
Following a public meeting held in the Reading Town Hall in February 1897, the Queen Victoria Institute for District Nursing in the County Borough of Reading was founded on 5 November 1897 as a way of commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Its object was to provide domiciliary nursing care for the sick poor of Reading, which it continued to do from 1897 to 1948. Under the National Health Service it provided nursing services (including midwifery) for the Corporation of Reading on an agency basis until 1959. In that year the Institute was replaced by a new charity, the Queen Victoria Institute Fund, and all its nursing functions were passed to the Corporation. The charity continued to provide chiropody and night services for the housebound sick and elderly. From 1976 they also provided training for chiropodists.
Governance structure
Over the years, the governance structure for the charity has evolved. In the early days, it had 4 trustees, in whom the charity property was vested, and a management committee of varying size, which had the power to establish sub-committees as necessary. In 1897, it was envisaged that the committee of management should not ‘exceed 20 in number, of whom not more than six shall be women’.
In 1959, a new governance structure was approved by the Charity Commission, whose scheme proposed that there should be 10 trustees, 3 of whom would be nominated by Reading Borough (2) and Earley Town Council (1) and that the 7 other trustees would be co-opted. 60 years later, the 1959 scheme remains the governance touchstone for the charity, whose accounts continue to be filed with the Charity Commission annually.
Services offered by the Charity
As early as June 1897, the management committee debated whether the offer should be benevolent (ie free to all poor sick people in the area of benefit) or provident (ie that some contribution should be made by patients). Although the scheme adopted in 1897 was a benevolent one, this issue was re-visited several times over the years. A Reading Council for Nursing Services was established in 1922 which provided district nursing for the Insured Members of Approved Societies under the National Health Insurance Acts and QVI was represented on the council. In 1932, QVI finally adopted a provident scheme (D/QX23/5/3/1932).
The records in this archive show how the QVI nurses were involved in major outbreaks of diphtheria (1908) and influenza (1919) and other serious medical treatments such as those for tuberculosis. From early on and until October 1931, they played an important role in the management of the health of school children (including providing baths for some children).
The provision of midwifery services was also the subject of repeated debates on the management committee. Midwifery was excluded from the original list of services offered by QVI, and the issue was first raised at the committee in October 1906 and again in 1908. An advocate for this proposal was Dr Mary Cruikshank, about whom more is said below. Further reviews took place over the years, including one in 1921, and, from 1922, the charity statistics regularly include data about midwifery visits.
QVI services were affected by government legislation, especially in the first decade of the twentieth century. The trustees discussed the impact of a number of acts, not least the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1907, the Midwives Act 1910, the National Insurance Act 1911 (including Sanatorium Benefit), the Mental Deficiency Act 1913 and the Maternity and Child Welfare Act of 1918. Inevitably, the National Health Service Act 1946 transformed the nature and role of the charity.
From 1959 onwards, the work of the charity focussed on non-statutory activities, including nursing patients at night. Gradually the work of the charity developed around foot care services for disabled or older patients. This remained the priority for the charity into the twenty first century.
Founding trustees and members of the early management committee
The founding members of the charity included many of the Reading and Berkshire civic leaders of the time, such as Richard Benyon, Robert Hewett, Charles Morrison, Blackall Simonds, Berkeley Monck, GW Palmer, and Martin John Sutton and their wives. Professional legal and financial advice was provided by local firms of significant standing such as Blandy’s and local companies, such as the Tramways Company and Reading Football Club were also supporters of the endeavour.
One name, not otherwise well known in Reading local history, is worth noting -- that of Dr Mary Cruikshank, who joined the QVI management committee in November 1902. Her full title and qualifications are listed in the Reading Directories from 1900 to 1909, as Cruikshank, Miss Mary H., LRCP and S, MD (Brux.), 28 Portland Place, London Road, Surgery, 130 London Street. Her obituary in the British Medical Journal [1952, vol 2 p 4798] reveals how unusual her life and medical contribution to the community was:
Dr Mary Helen Carew Hunt, who died at Church Handborough, Oxfordshire, on October 17 at the age of 85, was the younger daughter of the late Mr. AW Cruikshank, of Montrose, and received her professional education at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women in London, taking the Scottish triple qualification in 1895. In the following year she obtained the MD of the University of Brussels and the LM Rotunda. She practised first in Reading then in Oxford. In 1909 she married Canon RW Carew Hunt, vicar of St Giles’ Reading. He died in 1924. Dr Carew Hunt practised in Oxford for many years, and was particularly interested in the development of infant welfare clinics throughout the county. She was a vice-president of the Medical Women’s Federation
The obituary goes on to mention that she was the first woman general practitioner in Oxford. Although this is not mentioned in the article, it is likely that she also was the first woman general practitioner in Reading. |