Soul sisters: the St. John and Raynard nurses in nineteenth century London

This paper uses the archives of the St John's training institution for nurses and the Raynard Mission to determine the extent to which cultural images and specialised space defined and drove the nursing profession in nineteenth and early twentieth century London. Emphasis is placed upon image and rhetoric, both sacred and secular, and the way the two combined to define the 'ideal' Victorian woman and nursing in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the understanding and treatment of illness. Research to date suggests that through a process of rationalisation of biblical and socio-cultural rhetoric, a specialisation of space, symbolic and literal, abstract and real was created; this enabled women to work in a gendered enclave, the organisational structure and rhetoric of which paralleled that of nunneries or convents. And even as the 'secular' became dominant in medical attitudes and treatment, the 'sacred'aspect of nursing and the emphasis placed upon it as being a vocation remained strong.