Agnes Hunt
Dame Agnes Gwendoline Hunt | |
---|---|
Born | London, England |
31 December 1866
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Baschurch, Shropshire, England |
Education | Royal Alexandra Hospital, Rhyl, Wales |
Medical career | |
Profession | nurse |
Institutions | The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital |
Specialism | Orthopaedic nursing |
Notable prizes | DBE Royal Red Cross |
Dame Agnes Gwendoline Hunt DBE RRC (31 December 1866 – 24 July 1948) is generally recognised as the first orthopaedic nurse.
She was born in London,[1][2] daughter and sixth of eleven children[3] of Rowland Hunt (1828-1878) of Boreatton Park, Baschurch, a village in west Shropshire, England, and his wife, Florence Marianne, eldest daughter of Richard Buckley Humfrey of Stoke Albany, Northamptonshire, England.[4]
Hunt was brought up at Boreatton Park until 1882, then at Kibworth Hall, Leicestershire before her widowed mother took the children to Australia, where they lived on a small farmstead.[5] She was disabled from osteomyelitis of the hip that she suffered from as a child following septicaemia.[6]
In 1887, she returned to England and began training as a "lady pupil" nurse at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl, Wales. She opened a convalescent home, attached to the Salop Infirmary at Shrewsbury, for crippled children at Florence House (a family property) in Baschurch in 1900 which espoused the theory of open-air treatment.[7]
In 1901, she sought treatment for her own condition from a Liverpool surgeon, Robert Jones.[8] She invited him to visit the convalescent home and he eventually began travelling there on a regular basis to provide treatment to the children. By 1907, they had built an operating theatre and they introduced the diagnostic use of X-rays in 1913. In 1910 it was approved as a training school by the Chartered Society of Massage and during World War I, Florence House was used to treat wounded soldiers.[9]
In 1918, Hunt was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her contribution during the war.[10] In 1919, the British Red Cross Society and the Shropshire War Memorial Fund provided financing to move the facility, renamed the Shropshire Orthopaedic Hospital, to a former military hospital at Park Hall, near Gobowen, Oswestry. The hospital also provided training for nurses. Later, a school begun for the children developed into a training college for disabled adults, Derwen College. The hospital was used once again to treat wounded soldiers during World War II. Following an extensive fire in 1948,[11] the hospital underwent a period of reconstruction and expansion, developing into what is now called The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital.
She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1926.
Hunt died in 1948 aged eighty-one. Her ashes were interred in the parish churchyard at Baschurch, where there is also a plaque inside the church, which reads: "Reared in suffering thou shalt know how to solace others' woe. The reward of pain doth lie in the gift of sympathy.".[12]
References
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- ↑ RJAH Historical Factsheet no. 10
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External links
- Shropshire History
- OsCell is a dedicated website to The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital for the medical and science teams to provide information available for patients and current work
- Orthopeadic Institute is a charity that helps The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital in Oswestry and also runs medical courses and books for doctors
- The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital
- Shropshire Hospitals in World War II