Kerfies, Cleggies and all that.
A Lifetime Nursing
Lilian Mary Roberts was the second daughter of Edward Roberts and Sarah Kerfoot. She was born at Towyn Hall near Rhyl on 8 April 1873 and lived there until the family moved to Foryd Lodge (also called Towyn Lodge) some time between 1881 and 1891. Her father was a prominent attorney in the area and her mother was the daughter of a gentleman farmer.
Very close to Towyn Hall was Morfa Hospital, an infectious diseases or isolation hospital which was built during Lilian's childhood. To have a modern, state-of-the-art hospital built within a few hundred metres of your home must have been influential. This was the late Victorian period, a time of huge advances in the sciences, not least of which was medicine. Whether Lilian had any link with that hospital, or if it influenced her choice of career, I don't know, but by 1897 she was a trainee nurse in the Florence Nightingale School at Saint Thomas's Hospital in London. She trained there between June 1897 and April 1901. In 1901 the Matron and Superintendent of Nurses gave her the following reference:
Nurse Lillian Roberts entered Saint Thomas's Hospital Training School in June 1897.
During her four years training she has had excellent experiences in medical and surgical nursing both as staff nurse and in the care of special cases.
She has also had varied experience of infections nursing in Scarlet Fever, Measles, Diphtheria and Enteric Fever, and has been for considerable time in the Obstetric Ward taking Staff Nurse duty. Nurse Roberts has had the advantage of attending operations and nursing the Paying Patients in Saint Thomas's Home for several months: she is very painstaking, and thoughtful for her patient’s comfort; kind and considerate and thoroughly competent.
L. M. Gordon.
Matron and Superintendent of Nurses
... and the Resident Assistant Physician said:
Miss Lilian Roberts entered the Nightingale Training Home for Nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital in June 1897 and since then has devoted her entire time to nursing.
She has had a very large and varied experience in all branches of nursing – medical, surgical and gynaecological, having performed the duties of Day and Night Staff Nurse, with complete control of patients in both the medical and surgical wards.
She has also had considerable experience with the infectious fevers, Scarlet Fever, Measles, Diphtheria, Typhoid etc. and for some months was on duty in the private paying home attached to the hospital. I have had abundant opportunities of observing her work and have formed the very highest opinion of her character and ability as a thoroughly trained nurse. She is painstakingly kind to her patients and most pleasant to work with.
A.E. Russell
M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P.
Resident Assistant Physician
St. Thomas’s Hospital
Given that Lilian had obtained references in April 1901, my assumption is that she left Saint Thomas's and nursed elsewhere. This was a time before the NHS so the healthcare system was quite different. At some stage between 1901 and 1906 she joined The Nurses Cooperation and took on private nursing placements. We know she had been working in this capacity from a testimonial in August 1906
August 17th 1906
Pennyhill Park,
Bagshot,
Surrey.
Miss Lilian Roberts (of the Nurse’s Co Operation, New Cavendish Street, London) has nursed me at two different times, and during five months, in a severe illness, and I cannot be thankful and praise her enough for the constant, intelligent care and the untiring kindness she has shown me during the long time she has been with me, and it is with great pleasure that I write to Miss Roberts this testimonial.
Carl Schloesser.
Primrose Hill Station.
London N.W.
In 1900, her brother Norman had died of disease in Krugersdorp, South Africa, after volunteering in the Second Boer War. He wrote to her about his adventure so I wonder if this gave her a yearning to either travel like him, or to gain experience in nursing abroad. I can only imagine that, as a nurse, she would have regretted that she didn't have the opportunity to use her expertise to help him when he was ill in a foreign land. They seemed quite close. Whether or not this was the reason, in 1906 she had secured a position as Nursing Sister at the Government Hospital in Suez, Egypt.
Following her time in Egypt she got another reference:
Government Hospital
Suez, Egypt
Jan 25 1908
This is to certify that Miss Lillian Roberts served under me in this hospital as nursing sister for more than a year. I found Miss Roberts capable, reliable, and conscientious surgical and medical nurse.
She had special charge of the private patients and she showed remarkable power by exerting her personal influence in making them carry out the prescribed treatments. Miss Roberts was greatly respected by both natives and European members of the staff.
J. T. Creswell.
MB BC(Cantab)
P.H.O. & Doctor
The next time we can place Lilian is in the 1911 census. At this time, she was residing at Beaufort House, Ham, Surrey and is a Sick Nurse.
From 14 April 1915 to 1 October 1917 she was employed as a Sister in Charge at Clayton House Hospital, Regents Park, Southampton. Many of the casualties from the First World War were routed to Southampton. One of the main military hospitals, Netley, was there, close by. Clayton House was an auxiliary hospital run by the Order of Saint John. Lilian kept a scrapbook album of photos and postcards of her time there. It sounds like she was well liked by the wounded soldiers.
After the war there is a period when I don't know what Lilian was doing. The stories I heard as a child were that she worked as a Nurse on cruise ships and ocean liners. Certainly, there were trinkets and objects from far flung places which I was told she had collected on her travels. Most are scattered among our wider family now. The story, I think, was right because by about 1935 Lilian was working for a wealthy family who travelled a great deal. Amy Swithinbank was married to Harold Swithinbank a vet and distinguished military man who served in both the army and the navy. They lived at Denham Court in Buckinghamshire and had a home in Mayfair also. Amy was widowed in 1928 and Lilian became her nurse and companion sometime after that. I have evidence from passenger lists of trips to Madeira, South America and New Zealand but I'm sure there are other destinations yet to find.
Amy Swithinbank died on 22 March 1942 by which time Lilian was 69. She probably retired after that and returned to North Wales to live with her sister Medi in Prestatyn.
Lilian died on 4 January 1959 aged 85.