| Rachel Frances Lumsden | |
| Birth Date: | 17 April 1835 |
| Birth Place: | Aberdeen |
| Death Place: | Aberdeen |
| Parents: | Jane Forbes and Clements Lumsden |
| Nationality: | British |
| Known For: | pioneering nursing and hospital management |
Rachel Frances Lumsden (17 April 1835 – 22 April 1908) was a British nurse, and hospital manager.[1]
Rachel Lumsden was the fourth of seven children of Jane Forbes of Echt, Aberdeenshire, and the advocate Clements Lumsden,[2] advocate in Aberdeen and Writer to the Signet. Her family lived at No 1 Union Terrace, Aberdeen.
In 1869, when her sister Louisa Lumsden enrolled at Hitchin College, Rachel went to London to train as a nurse at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.[3] She joined later King's College Hospital, where she acquired a knowledge of hospital management such as no other person of her years had got.
Lumsden was invited to Aberdeen to advise on the construction of a new hospital for sick children by a group of citizens who were involved in its creation. At the completion of the new Aberdeen Hospital for Sick Children in 1877, she was appointed superintendent, leading the nursing department and administering the domestic division. Her efficient and enlightened direction highly increased the confidence of the whole community. I
In 1885, The Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was lying in a state of physical and moral decline. The building was in urgent need of renovation, the domestic services were in a state of disarray, the nursing staff had been allowed to fall away. The Board of Directors invited her to use her expertise to ameliorate that state of affairs.[4] Despite the fact that the post of superintendent had previously always been covered by a man, she put herself forward for that position, and even on an unpaid basis. She was also in charge as a head-nurse and housekeeper and matron. Whilst in post she reorganised the nursing staff, and was also a charitable benefactor on several occasions. Rather than go in to academia, she preferred to devote all her abilities to the well-being of patients. Lumsden was one of the most industrious members of the Royal British Nurses' Association (founded in 1887 by Ethel Gordon Fenwick) and was on its executive committee as Scottish representative. Amid her reforms in administration, Lumsden introduced in 1891, a three-year formal nursing training course, having started in 1886, with a physician teaching anatomy, surgery, physiology to the nurses as well as examining practical nursing knowledge at Aberdeen (on a similar basis to that of the London Hospital),[5] believed to be the first of its kind in Scotland. This consisted of admitting probationers for a three year term of theory and practice training, under the direction of a sister nurse.
In the same year, Queen Victoria appointed her as a member of the Council of the Scottish Board of the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute of Nurses, a position that she held until 1897. The high degree of appreciation for her services is evident from the gracious message that Queen Victoria sent her, where it was stated that she had learned
Lumsden's work was noted in America, in an article on Nursing in Scotland, for the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago: Nursing of the sick
A body of 63 medical practitioners connected with the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen Hospital for Sick Children presented her with an autograph album. At the head of these names was Sir James Reid, the Queen Victoria's physician. The address stated that:[7]
Unusually for a nurse, Lumsden had an obituary in the British Medical Journal stating 'Aberdeen [medical] graduates in all parts of the world will hear with sympathy and much regret' of her death and quoting the above address and also noting Queen Victoria's interest in Lumsden's work in Aberdeen.[8]
The British Journal of Nursing counted Lumsden as one of the pioneers among nurse leaders who helped the profession to win the Royal Charter, saying 'their names and honourable labours for the organisation of their profession should be held in appreciative remembrance 4 by the younger generation, who owe them a debt of gratitude for their power of progressive thought, their sense of professional responsibility, their unselfish devotion to duty, and their courage in fighting prejudice and privilege.'[9]
Lumsden's elder sister Katharina Maria Lumsden (1831-1912) succeeded her as superintendent of the Aberdeen Hospital for Sick Children. Lumsden's eldest brother Henry Lumsden, became a Colonel in the Royal Madras Artillery, and later translated epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf into modern English, a scholarly publication in 1881 by Kegan Paul, her second oldest brother James, became a lawyer like his father and grandfather. Her younger sister Dame Louisa Innes Lumsden (1840-1935) became an author and the first headmistress of St Leonard's School, St. Andrews and awarded an honorary LLD from St. Andrew's University, unusual for a woman at that time.[10]