ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT PRESENTATION ALBUM TO A WARTIME DISTRICT NURSE

JUDD, Nurse [Mabel]:

Published by [Original manuscript]., 1943

Octavo (23 x 15cm). Early twentieth-century full vellum (most likely Italian) with stitched tan calf geometric decoration to the boards, incorporating tie. The contents held in place by a pale green silk ribbon. Decorative handmade-paper blocked with a floral design in yellow and green to the pastedowns. The contents comprising a 25pp. presentation address to "Nurse Judd by her friends in Painswick and District in token of their deep gratitude for her invaluable work and devoted service among them / September 1943", all executed in ink and watercolour, commencing with an illustrated title page containing the address surrounded by elaborate floral borders and four miniature watercolour roundals depicting townscapes, followed by the list of names of the subscribers, each page with its own unique watercolour border. The binding lacking one tie is otherwise in very good order; the contents remain clean and bright throughout. An attractive and unusual illuminated manuscript album presented to Nurse Mabel Judd by her community in Painswick, Gloucestershire during the Second World War. Before the National Health Service came into being in July 1948, organisers of local district nursing associations were responsible for employing district nurses, paying their salaries, building homes for them to live in, and providing other expenses. These local associations - pioneered by the Liverpudlian merchant William Rathbone in the mid-nineteenth century, and later by Florence Nightingale - were essentially philanthropic, and had to undertake fundraising to meet their outgoings. They often functioned as 'provident schemes', whereby people would join the association and pay a regular subscription in order to receive nursing care when the need arose. The subscribers' names in the present manuscript are, conspicuously, largely women, reflective both of the central involvement of district nurses in childbirth and childhood illness, as well as the wartime context in which many men were absent. An uncommon and touching testimony to the important role that these nurses played in the lives of ordinary people and within communities at large. Seller Inventory # 1359

Bibliographic Details

Title: ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT PRESENTATION ALBUM TO...
Publisher: [Original manuscript].
Publication Date: 1943
Binding: Hardcover