Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a Lady Displaced: Florence Nightingale's Envoy to Australia.

Tyler, Peter J.

Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced: Florence Nightingale's envoy to Australia, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2006; ISBN 1-920898-39-5.

Nursing history often tends towards hagiography, but this splendid biography avoids that pitfall. Lucy Osburn arrived in Sydney in 1868, accompanied by five other nursing sisters who also were trained at the Florence Nightingale Training School at St Thomas' Hospital in London. They came at the request of Colonial Secretary Henry Parkes, who asked the legendary 'Lady with the Lamp' to select a team who could reform nursing practices in the government-subsidised Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary, soon to be re-named Sydney Hospital. They were not the first trained nurses in the colony, of course. The Sisters of Charity had opened St Vincent's Hospital in nearby Potts Point in 1857, but that's another story.

At this period, hospitals were mainly charitable institutions for the poor. Anybody who could afford it was treated in their home by a private doctor, which was the preferred--and safer--option given the current therapeutic practices. However, as anaesthesia and aseptic surgery became the norm, it gradually became necessary to carry out complex procedures in a more regulated environment. Survival very often then depended on diligent post-operative care.

After Florence Nightingale returned from the Crimean campaign, a substantial fund to honour her achievements was subscribed by admirers throughout the English-speaking world. This finance enabled Nightingale to implement the principles she developed at the military hospital in Turkey. The first step was the training school, and when an invitation came from remote Australia, she jumped at the chance to spread her gospel through the British Empire. By this time Nightingale was a reclusive invalid, controlling her affairs through an extensive correspondence conducted from her bed. In fifty years, she made only one visit to the training school that bore her name.

Lucy Osburn had received minimal training and limited nursing experience, but she had the status of an upper middle-class lady, a prerequisite for leadership in the mid-Victorian era. Nightingale really didn't have any choice--Osburn was the only willing and acceptable candidate for the colony. The five other nurses were more experienced and perhaps better trained, but were of lower social status.

Modern readers are often oblivious to the nuances of social class that pervaded the second half of the nineteenth century. Judith Godden has done a great service by placing Lucy Osburn firmly into this context. Osburn was delighted to dine with the NSW Governor's wife, the Countess of Belmore, but appalled when asked to share a table with the hospital's dispenser. She rapidly built a friendship network with Sydney's elite ladies, but found it difficult to adjust to taking direction from board members who were merely (wealthy) shopkeepers. In a society that, if not egalitarian, at least encouraged advancement by ability rather than birth, this was bound to create tension.

Another source of conflict for Lucy Osburn was her adherence to the high Church of England in determinedly evangelical protestant Sydney. Dr Godden rightly draws attention to the significance of this allegiance, which again is unfamiliar territory to younger readers who were not brought up in the atmosphere of intense religious sectarianism that was rife in Australia until at least the middle of the twentieth century. Lucy Osburn, wearing a large crucifix on her black dress, was perceived by many as a closet Roman Catholic who wanted to run the hospital like a convent.

Providing still more grounds for hostility from sections of the population was her alliance with the political faction of Henry Parkes. Criticism in the daily press was compounded by public inquiries and a royal commission, which all must have had a debilitating effect on the sickly Osburn. Yet she was a complex personality, as her gossipy letters to Florence Nightingale reveal. A characteristic Yorkshire brashness was accompanied by insecurity and self-doubt. She was indiscreet, insensitive to the feelings of others, and completely misjudged the response of her mentor. Nightingale soon began to doubt the wisdom of her choice of Osburn as her envoy to Australia, and eventually disowned her.

Several other people have written about Lucy Osburn, based on a partial reading of the correspondence with Nightingale, but Judith Godden is the first to conduct a thorough analysis of original sources in Australia, England, France and North America. This research unearthed a lot of new material. Not only have earlier biographies misinterpreted the available evidence, they have managed to get basic information wrong. Obviously, many writers relied on secondary sources and so have perpetuated the mistakes of earlier biographers. A memorial plaque in The Rocks casts these errors in bronze, with an eleven-month discrepancy in Osburn's date of birth, for example.

Lucy Osburn was a misfit in Sydney. She left in 1885 after seventeen troubled years, returning to work in the slums of London before her death in 1891. Nevertheless, her legacy was immense. Nightingale-style nursing, with its faults and benefits, became entrenched throughout the colonies as her trainees dispersed to other hospitals. They were not 'ladies', but they were good nurses.

This book is a model of careful scholarship. It is more than a biography of a flawed but determined individual; it is an account of changing gender relation ships and the development of institutionalised medical practice. It is also very readable, perhaps due to what the author describes as 'the unholy trinity of sex, politics and religion' (p. 2). I think the text and illustrations deserve a better presentation than provided by the publisher's print on demand service, but at least this ensures that it is readily available, and inexpensive to purchase.

Peter J. Tyler

President

Professional Historians' Association

(NSW)