London School of Economics



Debbie Challis 0:08 Okay, we'll get going, I'll still be admitting people as they come through so if I look off [the screen] that's why. And so my name is Debbie Challis. I work at LSE Library. And obviously we're not at the LSE library right now. But it's great to introduce Wendy talking about her book on Endell Street Military Hospital partly because LSE Library has quite a lot of the archives. And I know that she spent some time working in our reading room. So this would have been in our Reading Room and it would have been an absolutely lovely day, because it's on the top floor or on the fourth floor of the library, and it's surrounded by windows and the sun streams through. It’s a lovely place to work. I think it's one of the best archive places you can work in really. So that's where it was meant to be.But we were really grateful that Wendy Moore agreed to do this anyway and on zoom so we can still do something feministic fortnight and because obviously when the book only came out last month, so it's, um, it fits into feminist fortnight in many ways because it is out, new, written about women as well as written by a woman, and it's used resources from the Women's Library. So I'll just introduce Wendy a little bit just to say she's a freelance writer and journalist and her specialism is in writing medical histories. I think that's right, isn't it? Starting with the biography of john Hunter, and the eminent surgeon who of course, gave names to the Hunterian Museum, which is only just opposite us as well. The fourth book was the most recent one before this about mesmerism. It was about Victorian mesmerism. And this book, as I said, it's about Endell Street military hospital. And, as I say, we are absolutely delighted that she's going to speak to us about this book tonight. I'll just go through what we're going to do, I'm going to hand it over to Wendy in just a moment, I'm going take the slide down and leave it and then head over to her. She's going to speak for 25 minutes or so. And then if you want to ask questions on the chat, as I said, when we were people coming in, my Maria is going to be there looking at the chat, and I will be too and we'll ask you to then ask you either to unmute yourself or I could ask a question for you if you don't want to say it. But um, basically, I'll ask you to unmute yourself, and you can ask a question directly.And then Yep, and then we should finish up but I'll give you fair warning about that.It's absolutely as a great to have a have Wendy on Endell Street because I think just before I joined over the library, we worked with Digital drama, who if you haven't seen it, have a great documentary on Endell Street and there was a drama performed that kind of reenacted some of the Endell Street Military Hospital for one night, it was an interactive performance. And do you have a look on that afterwards. In fact, I can share some links tomorrow both to where you can get Wendy’s book from and some independent booksellers, and also to the Digital Drama website. So with no further ado, I'm going take this slide down. (Then, check, allow you to share the screen you should be able to see that now). We'll hand over to Wendy to talk about her book. Thank you.Wendy Moore (Speaker):Okay, just setting up my power points.Sorry, one minute. Just trying to. . . I'm just trying to change the screen. Here we are.Right? Okay, sorry about that. Okay, great. Well, thank you very much indeed for that lovely introduction. It's an absolute delight to be talking to you. And I'm very grateful to the women's library for hosting the event. And especially because as Debbie said, I've spent so many hours in the women's library searching for this book, and have making some very emotional discoveries as well. So obviously, at the moment, we're all living through very strange times. And the story I'm going to talk about, I think, is very has lots of parallels for us today. The story is told in my book, and it's called Endell Street in the UK, it's also published in America as No Man's Land. Well, previously, I've given talks about my various books. I'm often asked how long I've come across the story that I'm writing about. And often the answer is quite dull. There's not really a eureka moment. But with Endell Street, there really was a dramatic moment of discovery. About 10 years ago, I walked into the Wellcome library for the history of medicine in Euston Road, and I saw this painting on the wall. What I did a double take, I did a double take because it's rare enough today to see an operating theatre where all the doctors are female. Today, women make up about 48% of the medical workforce in the UK, but they are still underrepresented in lots of specialties and particularly in surgery. And then I discovered that this picture depicts an operating theatre in the First World War, which was run and staffed entirely by women at Endell Street Military hospital. So I was amazed that the hospital wasn't better known. And so I began a journey to find out more about it, and also to bring that story to life. Well, Endell Street was unique. It was the only military hospital under the auspices of the British Army to be run and staffed by women. And the story of how the hospital came about is a remarkable example of courage, determination and stamina, which I think still speaks volumes to us today. When war broke out, in August 2014, thousands of men signed up to fight and women signed up in their thousands too, and thy women worked it in every capacity in the First World War, on the land, in factories and on public transport, like this conductorette she’s on a bus in the Strand. Well, naturally enough women doctors volunteered too. Within 10 days of war being declared more than 60 women doctors had offered their services to the War Office. But their help was not wanted. They were brutally rejected. One surgeon, the Scottish doctor, Elsie Ingles, she offered her services to the War Office in Scotland, and she was rebuffed with the famous words ‘my good lady go home and sit still’.Flora Murray and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson refused to sit still. They were both qualified doctors with more than 10 years experience each. Louis who was forty one at the time of the outbreak of the War was a surgeon. Flora, who was four years older, was a physician and anaesthetist, and they both originally trained at the London School of Medicine for women. But despite the fact that their qualifications were exactly equal to male doctors, their services were not wanted. As women doctors, they had only been allowed to treat women and children. Well, women in the UK had won the right to qualify in medicine several decades earlier. And in fact, it was Louise's mother, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who was the first woman to qualify in Britain to join the medical register in 1865. But nearly 50 years later, at the start of the First World War, women doctors were still confined to treating women and children only. No jobs in mainstream hospitals were offered to women because the all-male boards gave those jobs always to men, and so it was rare for women doctors to treat men, and they also rarely worked in surgery. So Flora and Louisa both had worked in women run hospitals treating only women and children. Louis had worked as a surgeon the New Hospital for Women, which was originally founded by her mother, and later became the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital. And together Flora and Louisa they ran, they had founded and they ran a small seven bed Hospital for Children in a poor part of London. And the photograph on the left shows Flora in the middle of a very cramped outpatients apartment there. Well, given the prejudice that they had both faced, it's not surprising they both became suffragettes. Louisa had served four weeks in Holloway prison, for smashing a window. Flora had been Emily Pankhurst’s honorary doctor, and she'd actually treated many suffragettes for the ill effects of force feeding. And they were also life partners, Flora and Louisa were devoted to each other. They wore identical diamond rings, and they lived together in the manner of a married couple. So they had stood shoulder to shoulder in the women's battle for equality. But when the war broke out, the suffragettes and the suffragists just both suspended their campaigns with a vote so that women could join the fight against a common enemy. Well, Flora and Louisa were just as keen as any male doctor to serve their country, but they also realised that war was an opportunity. It was a chance for women doctors to prove that they were equal to their male colleagues. And they didn't waste time approaching the army, they knew they would be rejected. And instead, just eight days after the outbreak of war, they offered their help to the French Red Cross, and were more than happy to accept. And then within a fortnight they've raised 2000 pounds for medical equipment, recruited a team of like-minded women and kitted them out with military style uniforms. Then on the 15th of September, just six weeks after the start of war, they set off with their team for France. They called their unit the Women's Hospital Corps. In addition to Murray and Anderson, the core comprised three women doctors, and later two more joined them, and eight nurses and later, more nurses. came out to France as well, and three women orderlies, plus they had four male helpers. When they arrived in Paris, they were given an empty luxury hotel. The hotel Claridges in the champs elysees. It was brand new, it never actually opened, and within 48 hours, they had scrub the floors, set up camp beds, and converted the hotel into a 100 bed emergency hospital.So they turned the stylish salons and dining rooms into wards. The lady's cloakroom became the operating theatre, which you can see in the photograph on the right, and the grille room, which has been originally designed for wealthy guests to linger over steak and claret that became their mortuary. And then on the second night that they had arrived at claridges, the wounded began to pour in. They were British and French soldiers who were coming back from the frontline, which was roughly 60 miles outside of Paris. Well, the women doctors were, of course, very, even dangerously inexperienced. They had no experience of military surgery. They had little experience with major surgery at all. And they had never before treated men, but they learned fast. And in any case, the wounds that and the conditions that they were treating, were unprecedented. So no doctors, male or female had ever predicted previously encountered the scale and the extent of the wounds that the First World War unleashed. So the men came to them with huge gaping wounds, with head injuries with compound fractures, where the bone was emerging from the skin (sorry about people eating dinner), and all the wounds had extensive gangrene too. And some men had early signs of shell shock. At first army officials were hostile about the idea of a Women's Hospital. But they came to visit and they looked around, and they were so impressed that they became allies and advocates for the women's work. So a few months later on, the women set up a second hospital near to Boulogne and the army actually gave that official status. So the Chateaux Mauricien, which you can see in the postcard in rather more tranquil times, that became the first hospital staffed by women to operate under the auspices of the British Army. And there they treated the wounded who were sent back in ambulance trains from the nearby battle and the back from the first bathroom. And then In early 1915, Murray and Anderson were invited to a meeting at the War Office in London with Sir Alfred Keough, who was the head of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Well, Keough had heard about their work. He’d heard it praised by his army colleagues in France. And he now asked them to run a major military hospital in the heart of London. Well, it was an astonishing request, but they accepted it immediately. They knew this was their real chance to prove that women doctors were every bit as skilled as their male colleagues. So they closed down units in France, and they moved back to London. Well Endell Street Military Hospital opened in May 1915 in a former workhouse in Covent Garden. It had 520 beds later, that became 573, in 17 wards and all the wards incidentally were named after the female saints. And it was and would remain the only Hospital in the British Army to be run and staffed by women. Apart from 22 male RAMC officials and later that was again reduced to eight. All of the 180 staff were women. There were 14 doctors, 29 trained nurses, and more than 80 orderlies. And in fact, it was the orderlies who did most of the work. They were nursing assistants, stretcher bearers, cooks, clerk's cleaners, and many of them actually came from middle class, upper class backgrounds. They were women who've never really worked before, though they come from households with servants. They'd never previously boiled an egg, let alone emptied a bed pan.And some of them were actually dropped off at the gates of Endell Street in the morning by chauffeured cars and picked up at the end of the day.Iin the same way that regardless of their background, all the women wore the same military uniform as you can see here. They were awarded army pay and allowances and they were given an honorary military rank. So Murray and Anderson became the equivalent of majors and Murray was later appointed, promoted to become a Lieutenant Colonel. So Endell Street was on the front line of the capital’s medical care. Ultimately, there would be more than 300 military hospitals in London. But Endell Street was one of the 20 biggest hospitals in the capital. And within central London, it was one of the 10 largest and because of its proximity to Charing Cross it was very close to the Strand. It received many of the most seriously injured cases. The convoys of wounded usually arrived in the middle of the night. You can see a convoy arriving here in the courtyard with two women, stretcher bearers. And the imminent arrival of a convoy it was usually announced by an bell being run twice in the courtyard. And when they heard that the women orderlies who lived on the site would hurriedly get dressed, put their clothes over their pyjamas, and rush down into the courtyard and line up ready to unload the men. And up to 80 men might be writing in a convoy at once. But Endell Street was really regarded as a huge gamble. Sir Alfred Keough had actually been warned by his army colleagues that it would not last, he was told it would not survive six months. And the War Office actually put every obstacle in the women's way to try to, just to be as difficult as possible, really. But it not only survived six months it was hailed a triumph. At first, in fact, some of those men who were arriving in that courtyard and being unloaded from those ambulances, they were so shocked to see women doctors, that they thought they had been set there to die, because they cannot think of another explanation as to why they were being sent to a hospital that was run by women. But very quickly, they not only accepted within doctors, but they decided that was the best hospital in London. Newspapers responded likewise. But first, the press really regarded Endell Street as something of a curiosity and novelty but this seems changed, and Endell Street was then hailed as an emblem of the Blighty fighting spirit. And the suffragettes’ hospital as it was known, became described as the most popular and the most successful in London. Endell Street became renowned for its efficient organisation and its professional care. Staff treated more than 26,000 wounded. The vast majority of them were men but they did also treat about 2000 women. The surgeons performed more than 7000 major operations, most of them done by Louisa Garrett Anderson. They often operated between eight and nine hours a day. And they introduced pioneering treatments. In 1916 Louisa Garrett Anderson and her pathologist Helen Chambers, they pioneered a new antiseptic ointment to tackle the very severely affected wounds that they saw. The ointment was called Bithmuth Iodine Paraffin paste and it was known as BIP for short and there are records showing that wounds have been ‘bipped’ even ‘rebipped’. But they found that it not only healed the wounds better than other antiseptic methods, but because it could be left in place for up to 10 days at a time, it needed fewer changes of dressings, so it was less painful for the men. And it was first tested on some of the men who actually came back in the very first few days of the Somme advance, and then they published their results in The Lancet a few months later.But Endell Street was also famous for its homely atmosphere. Because Louisa Garrett Anderson firmly believed that the men were often more wounded in their minds than in their bodies. So she made sure that the wards were all airy and bright with colourful bed quilts, fresh flowers, and standard lamps. And the court yard was turned into a tranquil haven with lots of plants and shrubs, and so that it could be used for the men to rest but also for festivities, like the bank holiday fete that was shown in this postcard when the men were actually encouraged to invite their families along. And that's why there's a girl in front of that picture. There was also a library, which had about 5000 books that was run by two famous authors, and a theatre, where hundreds of entertainments for stage including concerts, magic acts, and pantomimes. And they had more than 1000 entertainers who visited every year. The men were also taught knitting and needlework in order to keep them occupied. It was a form of occupational therapy really. And some of that actually still survives. The shoe bag on the left is kept in the women's library. And it's quite sort of special I think, because it shows an embroidery of Louisa Garrett Anderson with her two dogs, and the black and white terriers, and the one on the right was actually embroidered by a soldier who had one arm amputated, and it's owned by a descendant of the Anderson family. But despite all these efforts, jollity and keeping people's spirits up. It was obviously exhausting and gruelling work. The women's staff had to work incredibly hard. And Murray and Anderson were very tough task master's, they were very strict disciplinarians. One orderly later said that they were told they had to be not only as good as men, but better. And on top of the long hours, the women were also suffering food shortages. And they came under attack from air raids. Zeppelins began to bomb London in 1915. And later, there were large German planes that dropped even bigger bomb. But I think for all of this really hard work, it was also exhilarating as well. And that's one of the things that came over to me most strongly really, that the women were enjoying this chance for the first time to do something they were good at. And they were working together for a common cause and proving they were as good as men.Well after the war ended, Endell Street stayed open for another year, treating the victims of the 1918-19 flu pandemic, the so called Spanish flu. That was really the darkest time for the women. Throughout the war they had saved thousands of men from death and from disability by working together. But now the Spanish Flu arrived. They were. They were, it was impossible to fight this invisible enemy, the pandemic caused between 50 million and 100 million deaths worldwide. And at the height of the second most lethal wave of flu, which arrived in Britain in November 1918. So the time of the armistice, nearly 30,000 people died in the UK in a single week. And in Endell Street there were now more patients dying per week of the flu than had been dying in the war. And of course, it effected the staff too, about 22 of the staff became ill with the flu, and at least four actually died of the flu. But Endell Street again was one of the first large hospitals to pioneer new methods of trying to prevent the virus from spreading. So they actually were one of the first hospitals to start using face masks, which were not in common use at the time, to segregate the wards and to put up screens between the beds. But the doors finally closed in December 1919. And the war had changed everything, and nothing, because women doctors, all the hospitals, women staff, were now expected to go back to exactly the same roles they had done before the war. So medical schools closed their doors again to women. Mainstream hospitals refused to appoint the women doctors again. So those women doctors who had kept hospitals open throughout the war had to lose their jobs. And they were not reappointed. And most of the doctors who've worked at Endell Street and gaining all that incredible experience in surgery and other areas. Now, we're forced to go back to treating women and children or work abroad or retire. And it was going to be many more decades before women in medicine won equality. Flora and Louisa carried on working in medicine for a few more years, but then they retired to the countryside. Flora actually died not soon not long after the war ended in 1923. I think she was probably worn out by her war effort. And Louisa lived on alone for another 20 years. She actually worked in a casualty In World War Two, before she died in 1943. And at that point, there was an inscription added onto Flora’s gravestone which is in a village in Buckinghamshire, and it says, ‘We have been gloriously happy’. And that always brings a bit of a tear to my eye. Well, my book is a tribute to all the women who worked at Endell Street and all the men who were treated there, and I wrote it to give voice to them. And also because I do think it still speaks to us today, and especially today about the extremes of human endurance, of loss of pain, of sacrifice, but also enormous courage and dedication and compassion, and the simple joy of being alive. So, thank you very much and look forward to hearing your questions.(I’m going to stop sharing . . . yeah)Debbie Challis 29:07:If anybody wants to write any questions, ask Wendy any questions while she sorts her screen out sharing - please put them in chat. So there's a question. Monica, do you want to unmute and ask it Monica?Unknown Speaker (Monica) 29:27: Good morning. Thank you Wendy for that. That was fantastic. (Wendy: Okay.) Can you tell us a bit more about your sources?(Was it) Did you have a wide selection to choose from? Was most of it held at LSE? Did you have to travel to find it? Yeah, I'd love to know more about the sources.Wendy Moore 29:46: Okay. Well, first and foremost, I want to pay tribute to Gillian Geddes. So Gillian Geddes is a retired doctor who'd already done a lot of research on Endell Street and she's incredibly generous. She shared a lot of information with me. And she's actually a descendant of the Anderson family. And I think she was instrumental in making sure that the Anderson family documents were given to the Women’s Library. And then secondly, the Women's Library itself was was absolutely crucial to the research. So, I looked at, I mean that at the Women’s library there are papers belonging to Lousisa Garrett Anderson and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. And the most fabulous thing perhaps is a scrapbook which Flora Murray had collected throughout the war, where she pasted cuttings about Endell Street, so that was an absolutely crucial resource. In addition, there are letters from one of the orderlies who worked at Endell Street, who was called Nina Last, and even her uniform has survived. So as I said, I had lots of quite emotional moments working there. And one of those was being shown the uniform and I wasn't allowed to touch it, because it's too fragile for that. But it was just incredible to see the uniform that Nina, whose letters I had read, had been wearing. There are lots of other archives too. And in addition, I got in touch with lots of families whose grandmothers had worked at Endell Street or grandfathers actually had been treated there. And they too shared lots of letters and pictures and diaries with me as well.Debbie Challis 31:35: Thank you. There's another question from Ruth Bookbug, if you want to unmute yourself and ask it directly.Unknown Speaker (Ruth) 31:42: Yeah, sorry, the Bookbug is part of my work. (Laughs)And an amazing talk, as Monica said, and I can't wait to read the book. I'm a big fan of your work anyway. And yeah, can't wait to read that. And I'm just so glad that this is a book that's talking about Endell Street. I've given lots of talks about work that women did during the First World War. And I always mentioned there and people are always amazed that there was this hospital in the UK run completely by women. It's just incredible. I'm quite curious about the relationship between Louisa and her mother, and whether, you know anything about that, particularly when Endell Street was, was being run. You know, did Elizabeth get involved in any way? I mean, I know she would have been fairly old at that point. But I'm just curious to know, given the kind of background of pioneering female doctors whether she said anything about it at all.Wendy Moore (Speaking):yeah, okay. That's, that's interesting. Um, and there are letters between Louisa and her mother in Ipswich. For the age of eight, she's, her letters were kept. And she called her parents, Moodle and poodle, which makes me laugh. So they're very devoted letters, but there's a slight friction because Louisa Garrett Anderson had, she'd lost one child actually, a sister of Louisa's, and so she was very protective of Louisa and her brother Alan's health.So I think that became a bit of, a bit of an issue. So I think Louisa wants to be quite independent, even though she was very loyal to her mother. Now, at the time of the First World War, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson had retired as a doctor and retired from the EGA hospital, or what became the EGA hospital. And she'd also become what they described as a bit wondering. So she was a little bit suffering from dementia, I think. So she - and apparently it's a bit of apocryphal - saw Louisa and Flora off at the station, when they went off to Paris. And there was some letters back from Louisa telling her mother what it was like in Paris, and describing the surgery. She didn't really describe the surgery very often. I think she was sparing her family but she did to her mother because she knew her mother would be very proud of her. But her mother did deteriorate quite quickly and then she died. I think it was 1917. And she died and there was a memorial service at that point in the little chapel that was part of the Endell Street hospital site. They had a big memorial service there.Debbie Challis 34:32 So there's somebody from Kate, talking about, was there any resistance to the hospital closing? Do you want to ask that yourself, Kate? Kate's, Yeah, Kate, do you want to say yourself. (Just unmute it).Unknown Speaker (Kate) 34:53: Hi. Hello. I'm really enjoying reading your book. Um sandwiched between nice new *, at the moment. I just found it incredible that is such a large success, that the hospital could just close after the Spanish Flu with barely a trace left. And I just wanted if there was any sort of resistance within medicine, or from the public, it seemed to be quite renowned throughout London is that, you know, the hospital to go to. Wendy Moore 35:24: Yeah. It was very much that the whole atmosphere really changed when the war ended. You know, throughout the war, there was all this, you know, great Blighty spirit going, great, sort of, you know, patriotism obviously. And then when the war ended, and over the next few months, it was this real change of atmosphere and lots of reports of men getting very frustrated and cross that they couldn't return to their jobs that they were held in army counts, and some of this frustration was actually turned against women. So there are reports of attacks on women. In Britain, physical attacks, sexual attacks. Flora Murray in her own book about Endell Street, which she wrote shortly after it ended. She says how the atmosphere changed in the hospital too. Though, as I mentioned, they were open for the Spanish flu. And they also did provide accommodation for the troops who were just returning home. And she said they became less willing to, be, accept discipline from women.And so I kinda, think, really, that a lot of the men in particular just wanted things to go back to how they've been before. They've been fighting, in the, fighting for their country. They wanted to forget about the war. They wanted things to give back. They wanted their women to be back in their old roles, they wanted to turn back the clock. So there was huge frustration from the women doctors and Flora and Louisa in particular, they argue that the women, other women doctors had joined the army by this point, and they argued that they should be given equal pay and equal tax exemption. But Winston Churchill also wrote a letter, quite a sort of very bitter letter really, saying that women were no longer needed in the army. They weren't wanted in peacetime. And it was it took another war before women were really doctors were again allowed to join the army. So yeah, it would have been would have been fantastic if and Endell Street had lead the way, and then changed everything. But it's one of the of saddest things about writing the book was how things just went back to how they'd been before. So yeah, immensely frustrating, I think.Unknown Speaker (Kate) 37:48 Yeah, I mean, that doesn't surprise me. I think everything in medicine needs at least glacial speed, especially sort of ethos and tradition. But thanks, Wendy. I've really enjoyed hearing you talk about Burke. Thank you.Debbie Challis 38:03 Thank you. There's a question from Martin, do you want to unmute yourself and ask it, Martin?I'll just unmute you, just a minute. Ask it again. I'll just unmute you. Okay.Unknown Speaker (Martin) 38:19 (Going away.) It seems to me that all these women were in there was a great under a huge number of women were willing to come forward and they're just waiting for the opportunity. And I don't know how long that had been the case. But I just wondered whether you knew of any similar expeditions by either nurses or doc, women doctors to help in the Boer War? Wendy Moore 38:45: Oh, Okay. Well, I don't really know of women doctors, particularly, I mean, the nurses and obviously been allowed into the army. So there were nurses in the army. So this argument from male doctors that women, one of the arguments was that women could not become doctors and treat men because men would be too sensitive to it and it would be to indecorous. And they'd have to treat wounds in vulnerable places. And it was ridiculous because obviously, there were army nurses who had been treating male soldiers at that already. So there were women, nurses who'd gone to join the army. They weren't actually on the frontline, but they were pretty close to it. But there was this huge swell of women who were waiting. When I was obviously, I've written about the women who worked at Endell Street, but same time, there were lots of other doctors who joined and nurses and other women who joined the Scottish women's hospitals, which was a unit set up by Elsa Inglis. So it was called the Scottish Women's Hospital but, in fact, it was just that she was Scottish, the women who work for that for it were not all Scottish. But they set up a total of eight hospitals in France and in Serbia, and later in Russia. And they did an incredible job. They're really remarkable. And because of the success of Endell Street, the army also invited women to be doctors to join in, in 1917, so women doctors join the army, and they went off to work in Egypt and Malta and elsewhere, but they were treated as second class citizens. They weren't allowed to wear military uniform. They weren't allowed to travel in the same trains as other army, male army officers. They were allowed to eat their dinners in the mess and, and often their orders so they might prescribe something that would be super commanded by a male orderly ever really low rank so it was a uphill battle the entire way.[End of transcription.]Transcribed by ................
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