Nurse Uniforms 1895 - 1995

Anyone visiting a hospital museum or viewing a set of historic photographs such as those which appear on this website cannot help but be amazed by the changes which have occurred in nurses' uniforms over the period 1895 - 1995. Florence Nightingale's pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, which is seen as laying the foundation for the modern profession of nursing, was undertaken in 1854. This is just prior to the establishment of the first Rockhampton Hospital in 1857.

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Miss Mary Jane Hood was the first trained nurse to graduate from the Port Curtis and Leichhardt District Hospital, later the Rockhampton Hospital, in March 1888. She was appointed as Matron of the Hospital just one month later in April. Mary Jane was featured in this photograph taken at the hospital which was published in the Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser on 04 May 1895. The photo includes all of the trained nurses and trainee nurses working at the hospital in 1895.

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Imagine working long shifts as a nurse in non-airconditioned hospital wards in Central Queensland. Notice the scissors conveniently hanging from the belt of at least one of the nurses - no precut and prepackaged dressings in 1895!

The image at left from the ACHHA collection shows nurses in uniform having afternoon tea at the Rockhampton Hospital in early 1900. It is a particularly attractive image.

The photograph on the right shows another example of an early uniform being worn by Nurse Elsie Crudgington whilst on duty at the Rockhampton Hospital in 1918. One of Elsie's uniforms was donated to the Australian Country Hospital Museum by her brother, Albert Crudgington, in 1979. The 1918 uniform includes dress, apron, belt, collar, cuffs and cap. When presented to the Association, the cap was still pinned ready to wear.

The ACHHA uniform collection commenced with this uniform. Our present quite extensive collection includes original uniforms worn by students and registered nurses at the Rockhampton Hospital between 1918 and 1995 when the last student group completed hospital based training. The collection also includes replica uniforms covering the period from 1850 to 1915.

Complex uniforms similar to the above were also in use by the Australian Army Nursing Service in World War One.

In these studio photographs, the two uniforms are being worn by Sister Alice Ethel Imison who commenced her nursing studies at the Rockhampton Hospital in January 1914 and completed in January 1917. She enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in August 1917 as a Staff Nurse. Initially, she served for a period in the Kangaroo Point Military Hospital in Brisbane. She then sailed from Sydney on the 'Anchises' on 08 August 1918 and served in Lahore, Pakistan, and Bombay, India. It would have been challenging to work in these uniforms in all of these locations. The uniform on the left is a dress uniform which would have been worn on all public and formal occasions. The uniform on the right was the the one worn for working in the hospital wards. The cape was not normally worn while working.

In the previous photos of the nurses at afternoon tea and Nurse Elsie Crudgington, we are showing nurses in training. Over the years, such nurses wore quite simple caps. When a nurse completed her training, her title changed to Sister and she was allowed to wear a much more elaborate veil, such as that worn by Alice Imison in the WW1 photograph above right.

By 1923, the uniforms were starting to become less severe. The photo on the left shows that the skirts have become just a little shorter and the long sleeves have disappeared. These are nurses in training, so they are wearing fairly basic caps. The nurses are (L to R) Vivian Webb, Margaret McCormack, Ada Malone, Lila Bradford, Elsie Webb, Annie McLaughlin, Florence Smith and Myrtle Jenks.

By 1927, the photograph on the right suggests that the skirts have shortened just a little bit more. The nurses in the photograph are (L to R) Ivy Baker, Myrtle Daniels, Lyla Best, Margaret Venton and Myrtle MacDonald.

The following photo which was taken in 1930 signals a new era of much simpler nurse uniforms in white with higher hemlines and short sleeves - much more practical for working in non-airconditioned hospital wards in the tropics. However synthetic no-iron fabrics were not yet available and the cotton uniforms, belts and caps were heavily starched and had to be ironed.

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The photograph above shows the staff of the Rockhampton Women's Hospital. During 1930, a new maternity hospital, named the Lady Goodwin, was opened within the grounds of the Rockhampton Hospital. The Women's Hospital was closed and the Matron, staff and patients were transferred to the Lady Goodwin. The Matron, Sister Sarah Maud Green, is the tall person in the centre of the front row. There is a difference between this photograph and those shown previously in that all of the women shown are nursing sisters who are also midwives, or training to become midwives. If you look closely among the sea of white, you will see that all are wearing sisters' veils rather than nurses' caps. The reason is that study for a midwifery certificate follows the completion of the full three or four year nursing qualification. All working or training midwives were already Sisters and entitled to wear the veil.

The nurses are identified as (Back Row L to R): Srs F. E. G. Easton, A. Cameron, Nellie Towers, G. F. Green; (Front Row L to R): Srs R. York, Vera Collins, Matron Sarah Maud Green, Srs J. I. Fullerton, Edna May Weber and Christina (Tot) Healy (seated on ground).

Moving forward ten years to Christmas Day 1940 at the Rockhampton Hospital, we see that the basic, comfortable uniforms are still in use. Remember that these wards are quite open with verandas enclosing the wards but no air conditioning.

Christmas Day was a very important day in hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are two main reasons. Firstly, patients were kept in hospital for much longer than they are now so there were many patients in hospital on Christmas Day. Secondly, the nurses were required to live at their hospitals in quarters provided by the Hospital. In keeping with the Christmas spirit, the nurses put considerable effort and skill into decorating their wards. Judges were appointed to identify the best decorated ward and there were prizes to be won.

The excitement of Christmas Day is illustrated in these photographs. On the left we see a young patient showing off one of his Christmas gifts by staging a "hold up" of one of the Sisters and two nurses. The photograph on the right is based around young patients, Santa Claus and ward nurses. However, the group includes key members of the Rockhampton Hospitals Board.

Information with the photograph identifies the following participants. Back row (L to R): Unidentified; Sister Alma Collins; Mr Cecil Pritchard (Hospital Manager); Santa Claus & Patient; Sr Margret Fraser; Mr Len Haigh (Hospital Board Chair); Mr R. D. McKean (Board Member); Front row: Sr K. Jeffries; Unidentified; Nurse Bomford. The Morning Bulletin of 26 December 1940 identified the nurses responsible for the Childrens Ward decorations as Sr K. Jeffries, Nurses E. Barry, M. Bomford, E. Kerridge, M. King, D. Gavin and D. Allwood. Santa Claus was Mr William Thomson, who was the Hospital Board Secretary.

By Christmas Day 1940, World War 2 was well underway and significant numbers of nurses enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service to serve in Australia and overseas. This generated a a new set of nursing uniforms for military service. The next two photos illustrate two versions of the army nurses' uniform, both modelled by Rockhampton Hospital trained nurse, Sister Alma Crudgington. Alma served in the Middle East, Palestine, Egypt, Australia and New Guinea. She was discharged on 10 August 1943 with the rank of Captain.

Another Rockhampton Hospital nursing sister enlisted in the Royal Australian Airforce Nursing Service which had different uniforms from those used by the army. Edna Weber was one of the first six RAAF nurses sent to serve in New Guinea war hospitals. This photograph from the Australian Womens Weekly of 1943 shows this group of nurses ready to fly to New Guinea.

The nurses are Sisters E. M. Weber (Rockhampton, Qld); H. Gardner (Port Macquarie, NSW); A. T. Cleary; Senior Sister J. W. Wheatley (Brighton, WA); Sisters E. A. Hamilton (Mackay, Qld); and F. A. Ashbey ?(Parramatta, NSW).

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The photograph on the left shows Edna wearing a more formal version of the Airforce Uniform. As well as New Guinea service, Edna worked in a number of Australian military hospitals. She left the service in 1947 with the rank equivalalent to Flight Lieutenant.

The unusual photo on the right also shows Sister Edna Weber in New Guinea. In this case, she is wearing the same uniform as the nurses in the above photograph which shows them preparing to travel to New Guinea. However the veil has been replaced by a hat. Edna was being taken to inspect a "native" sick bay. Part of the trip was made using an RAAF launch while in shallow water a local boat called a Lakatoi was used.

Uniforms did not undergo significant change over the next few years. However, before we move on we will show a most impressive photograph of the 1955 graduation ceremony where we see the white uniforms and the classical sisters' veils in all their glory. If you wish to view the names of the nursing graduates who attended this this ceremony, click on the photograph to see the detailed page in the database.

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Moving on to a period which saw many changes, the 1950s saw the the Rockhamton Hospital introduce a new type of veil to be worn by senior nurses who had completed all of their examinations during the first three years and were now in fourth year gaining additional practical experience before graduation. These veils were called "butterfly veils" and are illustrated in this photograph which includes, (L - R), Nurses June Curran, Kath Moriarty, Nancy Crapp, Niree Hardy and Una Bryson. The starched organdie butterfly veils were half the size of 36 inch square veils worn by Sisters. The nurses in the 1955 graduation ceremony had worn butterfly veils in their final year.

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Butterfly veils were phased out when the nursing course was reduced from four to three years in about 1969.

With the shorter course, seniority was sometimes shown with stripes or some other insignia on the nurses' caps. This 1974 photo shows a ward teaching round for new students. However, the cap worn by the nurse on the far right shows that she is a senior nurse who is in the third year of her general nurse training course. Those in the photo are (L to R): Graham Fenlon, L. Smith, Dr N. Foster, Dr Hank McClymont, Lorraine Forday, Cherry Watkins, Deanne Walls and D. Arthur. The first of the male nursing students commenced study at about this time. Graham Fenlon was the first to train at Rockhampton Hospital. He wore white a white shirt and shorts but no cap. This was the pattern from then on.

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In the late 1960s and 1970s the traditional complex sisters veils made from expensive materials such as organdie were phased out in favour of simple folded paper veils. This was a major break with the traditions linked to nursing over so many years. At the Rockhampton Hospital, two types of veil were introduced. These are illustrated in the next photograph. The "normal" veil being worn by Sister Fuller on the left was called the Baxter Veil. Nurses who qualified in midwifery wore a Cavell style veil, shown in the photograph being worn by Sister Traves.

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The next photograph of a 1971 graduation photo with nurses wearing the paper veils allows you to make a comparison with the 1955 graduation photo shown above. We do not have the names of the nurses in this photograph. However, the person on the right of the front row is Matron Norma West. This was Miss West's first year as Matron, a position she held until 2001. The gentleman next to her is The Hon S. D. Tooth MLA, Queensland's Minister for Health.

Early in this article we wrote about the steady shortening of the nurses' uniforms. The early 1970s was when mini-skirts became fashionable. Nurses' uniforms followed suit.

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Over the following 20 years, caps disappeared altogether and colours were introduced. Further photographs will be added as time permits.

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