From Association to Union: Professional Organization of Asylum Attendants, 1869-1919

Before the growth of trade unionism among mental nurses, there had existed in England the rudiments of a professional organization of Asylum Attendants, the 'Asylum Worker's Association'. This organization disappeared almost without trace after the first world war, in intriguing circumstances. Toward the end of the nineteenth century nursing organization was moving apace. It was still difficult for nurses to free themselves from the control of their hospital schools after training, to advance themselves professionally and to seek better positions. This control did not protect the nurse from the use of unskilled labour. Mrs. Bedford Fenwick, wife of an M.P. and matron of a large London hospital, together with a number of other younger matrons identified the nursing question with the question of woman's suffrage2 and founded, in 1887, the British Nursing Association (B.N.A.) to advance the interests of nurses. One central purpose of the Association was to gain incorporation under a Royal Charter and state recognition of registration of nurses.3 The organization was set up with remarkable care as regards constitution and balance of the many diverse interests bearing on the profession. Princess Christian of Schleswig Holstein, a daughter of Queen Victoria, consented to be the Patron. On the executive council, a balance was achieved between doctors and matrons: one hundred members were recruited from the top of each profession.4 A further hundred sisters and nurses ensured the nursing identity of the Association. On the executive council were a number of prominent psychiatrists and neurologists, notably Sir James Crichton-Brown, Sir Dyce Duckworth and Dr. Outterson-Wood. Now Senior Attendants in the metropolitan asylums seem to have associated themselves in spirit with the nursing activism in the hospitals of the region. 'Association with a professional group might be expected to lead to improvement of prospects and conditions.' For conditions were, if anything, worse in asylums, and, according to