Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary
A workhouse was an institution to provide poor relief in exchange for work for able-bodied paupers. Workhouse infirmaries were the hospitals in the workhouses that offered treatment for the sick and injured inmates. The workhouse infirmaries were known to have terrible conditions. The pauper nurses of the infirmaries were drunken prostitutes-the typical Victorian nurse. On May 16, 1965, Nightingale, a small group of nurses, and one matron named Agnes Jones arrived at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. They expected to improve the horrifying environment during their stay.
“Drunkenness was universal—thirty-five of the pauper nurses had to be dismissed for drunkenness in the first month… Filth was universal. The patients wore the same shirts for seven weeks; bedding was only changed and washed once a month; food was at starvation level…” -Cecil Woodham-Smith
Agnes Jones. © Peter Higginbotham.
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"Liverpool workhouse, Brownlow Hill, from the west c.1931."
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ImpactAgnes Jones, working under Florence Nightingale, reduced the cost of maintaining the sick in the infirmary.
Together they improved the conditions of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, allowing for the inmates to live, work, and heal in a better environment. |
Florence Nightingale from Tentmaker Ministries.
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