History of the Stewarts | Famous Stewarts
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Isla Stewart - Matron, nurse, author & educator
Isla Stewart (25 August 1856 – 6 March 1910) was a hospital matron of St Bartholomew´s Hospital in London and a founding member of the Royal British Nurses Association.
Stewart was born at Slodahill, near Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, to soldier and journalist John Stewart, and his wife Jessie Murray. All of Stewart´s siblings were sent to boarding school, but she stayed at home to study under a governess. Later in life she regretted missing the opportunity to study abroad like her sisters.
Stewart began working at St Thomas´ Hospital in London, England at the age of 23, as a special probationer in the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. After working in the Training School for nine months Stewart rose to become a sister of the surgical ward with 20 beds, Alexandra Ward. The Nightingale training had emphasized the ideas of practical nursing experience over theoretical instructions, and possibly most importantly to Stewart, the moral values that all nurses have to possess to be successful and effective.
Stewart left St Thomas´ in 1885 when she was chosen to become matron at a smallpox hospital in Darenth, near Kent, England. Despite Stewart´s organisation and hard work to keep the camp running, it was shut down in 1886.
In the summer of 1887, Stewart became the matron of St Bartholomew´s Hospital in London. Stewart brought more order and education to the nursing programme than the past administration, and a set of skills the nurses had to learn and perfect or they would be dismissed from the programme. She created a four year training system for nurses-to-be.
Stewart published Practical Nursing with Dr H. E. Cuff in Fall of 1899, in an attempt to describe how nurses should work, with reasoning for the treatments carried out. The most important point was the idea that training should be required and that hospitals could create their own training programmes and employ the nurses immediately after completion . Another volume was published in 1903, and then the second edition was published in 1909. After her death in 1910, Miss Cutler the assistant matron of St Bartholomew´s continued writing and published a third edition in 1911.
Stewart was born at Slodahill, near Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, to soldier and journalist John Stewart, and his wife Jessie Murray. All of Stewart´s siblings were sent to boarding school, but she stayed at home to study under a governess. Later in life she regretted missing the opportunity to study abroad like her sisters.
Stewart began working at St Thomas´ Hospital in London, England at the age of 23, as a special probationer in the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. After working in the Training School for nine months Stewart rose to become a sister of the surgical ward with 20 beds, Alexandra Ward. The Nightingale training had emphasized the ideas of practical nursing experience over theoretical instructions, and possibly most importantly to Stewart, the moral values that all nurses have to possess to be successful and effective.
Stewart left St Thomas´ in 1885 when she was chosen to become matron at a smallpox hospital in Darenth, near Kent, England. Despite Stewart´s organisation and hard work to keep the camp running, it was shut down in 1886.
In the summer of 1887, Stewart became the matron of St Bartholomew´s Hospital in London. Stewart brought more order and education to the nursing programme than the past administration, and a set of skills the nurses had to learn and perfect or they would be dismissed from the programme. She created a four year training system for nurses-to-be.
Stewart published Practical Nursing with Dr H. E. Cuff in Fall of 1899, in an attempt to describe how nurses should work, with reasoning for the treatments carried out. The most important point was the idea that training should be required and that hospitals could create their own training programmes and employ the nurses immediately after completion . Another volume was published in 1903, and then the second edition was published in 1909. After her death in 1910, Miss Cutler the assistant matron of St Bartholomew´s continued writing and published a third edition in 1911.