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Eva Luckes
Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes CBE RRC DStJ (8 July 1854 – 16 February 1919) was matron of the London Hospital from 1880 to 1919.
Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes (she spelled her name Lückes with the umlaut until World War I) was born in Exeter, Devon on 8 July 1854 into an upper middle-class family. Her father, Henry Richard Luckes, was a bank manager and entrepreneur who invested in local railways, and mines. They lived in Ross on Wye, and in Newnham, Gloucestershire. Miss Luckes, the eldest of three daughters, was educated at dame schools in Malvern, and at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and possibly in Dresden. She is said to have suffered from some physical disability and had a horse to help her travel about the countryside. After she finished her education she lived at home, helping her mother run the house and visited the sick of the parish. It was this that developed her interest in nursing.
In September 1876 Luckes tried working at the Middlesex Hospital as a paying probationer for three months but she felt the work was too hard. She tried again at the Westminster Hospital, and she completing her training in August 1878. She was night sister at the London Hospital for a few months, before becoming lady superintendent / matron at the Manchester General Hospital for Sick Children in Pendlebury. She clashed with the medical committee for instigating reforms to the training of nurses and she resigned.
After working for six months at the Hospital for Sick Children Great Ormond Street (Great Ormond Street Hospital), Luckes successfully applied for the position of matron at The London Hospital, where she had begun her professional career.
At 26, Luckes was the youngest of the five candidates interviewed and several of the Committee thought her "too young and too pretty" and were wary of appointing someone with relatively little experience. However, the confidence of the committee members was well founded as she set about introducing a programme of reforms to improve the standard of nursing at The London, although it should be remembered that a Sub-Committee, to review the system, had been appointed in the previous year.
While Luckes was not a "Nightingale nurse," in the sense of having trained at the Nightingale School at St Thomas', she sought advice on nursing and hospital problems from Nightingale. The two met periodically and Nightingale became her mentor, and active supporter when a House of Lords' committee was established to investigate charges against her. Nightingale worked strenuously behind the scenes to clear her name, notably by eliciting the help of her cousin, General Sir Lothian Nicholson, who was a governor at the hospital. Luckes was cleared of all the charges.
She was a valued collaborator of Nightingale's in the campaign against the state registration of nurses led by Ethel Gordon Fenwick, on which see "State Registration of Nurses" (McDonald).
Luckes is given credit for the appointment of Sydney Holland to the London Hospital committee, where he later became treasurer and chair. He raised the money for a substantial hospital expansion, including a new nurses' home. Luckes appreciated Nightingale's "patient, bright listening—there are as many differences in the ways of listening as in the ways of talking, are there not?" she remarked in a last letter: "I left your room yesterday feeling so much better for having been with you," her anxieties "melting away," so that she could be "strong" again, and "see clearly the way to go".
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Eva Luckes
Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes CBE RRC DStJ (8 July 1854 – 16 February 1919) was matron of the London Hospital from 1880 to 1919.
Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes (she spelled her name Lückes with the umlaut until World War I) was born in Exeter, Devon on 8 July 1854 into an upper middle-class family. Her father, Henry Richard Luckes, was a bank manager and entrepreneur who invested in local railways, and mines. They lived in Ross on Wye, and in Newnham, Gloucestershire. Miss Luckes, the eldest of three daughters, was educated at dame schools in Malvern, and at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and possibly in Dresden. She is said to have suffered from some physical disability and had a horse to help her travel about the countryside. After she finished her education she lived at home, helping her mother run the house and visited the sick of the parish. It was this that developed her interest in nursing.
In September 1876 Luckes tried working at the Middlesex Hospital as a paying probationer for three months but she felt the work was too hard. She tried again at the Westminster Hospital, and she completing her training in August 1878. She was night sister at the London Hospital for a few months, before becoming lady superintendent / matron at the Manchester General Hospital for Sick Children in Pendlebury. She clashed with the medical committee for instigating reforms to the training of nurses and she resigned.
After working for six months at the Hospital for Sick Children Great Ormond Street (Great Ormond Street Hospital), Luckes successfully applied for the position of matron at The London Hospital, where she had begun her professional career.
At 26, Luckes was the youngest of the five candidates interviewed and several of the Committee thought her "too young and too pretty" and were wary of appointing someone with relatively little experience. However, the confidence of the committee members was well founded as she set about introducing a programme of reforms to improve the standard of nursing at The London, although it should be remembered that a Sub-Committee, to review the system, had been appointed in the previous year.
While Luckes was not a "Nightingale nurse," in the sense of having trained at the Nightingale School at St Thomas', she sought advice on nursing and hospital problems from Nightingale. The two met periodically and Nightingale became her mentor, and active supporter when a House of Lords' committee was established to investigate charges against her. Nightingale worked strenuously behind the scenes to clear her name, notably by eliciting the help of her cousin, General Sir Lothian Nicholson, who was a governor at the hospital. Luckes was cleared of all the charges.
She was a valued collaborator of Nightingale's in the campaign against the state registration of nurses led by Ethel Gordon Fenwick, on which see "State Registration of Nurses" (McDonald).
Luckes is given credit for the appointment of Sydney Holland to the London Hospital committee, where he later became treasurer and chair. He raised the money for a substantial hospital expansion, including a new nurses' home. Luckes appreciated Nightingale's "patient, bright listening—there are as many differences in the ways of listening as in the ways of talking, are there not?" she remarked in a last letter: "I left your room yesterday feeling so much better for having been with you," her anxieties "melting away," so that she could be "strong" again, and "see clearly the way to go".