Queens Nurse Sister Louisa Jordan

COVID-19 has prompted the Scottish Government to increase the bed capacity within existing hospitals and create a temporary hospital in Glasgow.  The new medical facility is at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC), Glasgow.  The Health Secretary Jeane Freeman MSP, announced on 1 April 2020, that the temporary hospital is named after Sister Louisa Jordan QN who died on active service with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service [SWH] in Serbia in 1915.  The NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital officially opened on the 20 April 2020.  

But what was the SWH and who was Queen’s Nurse Sister Louisa Jordan?    

Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service
SWH was an organisation founded by Dr Elsie Maud Inglis (1864-1917) in 1914 at the outset of the First World War.  With the outbreak of the war in August 1914, Inglis offered her services to the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) at Edinburgh Castle and was famously told, ‘My good lady go home and sit still’ (Leneman 1998 p34). She did not. She set about fund raising through her links with the Scottish Federation of Women’s Suffrage Societies (SFWSS), and by October 1914, £1,000 had been raised for the first hospital in France. This was one of many established under the auspices of the SWH. 

Inglis initially approached the Belgian and French Red Cross authorities to offer help to treat the casualties of the escalating war, as the British establishment would not countenance her efforts until nearer the end of the war.  Through the SFWSS, she gave lectures about the hospitals she wanted to set up and asked for women volunteers to come and work with her, thus the Scottish Women’s Hospitals were formed.   Given the position of women in society at this time, these SWH and casualty clearing stations were remarkable units as they were funded, organised, managed and staffed entirely by women.  All the administrators, nurses, surgeons, bacteriologists, cooks, engineers, drivers, orderlies and Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) were women working at the front line from November 1917 until the end of the war.  Throughout the war, 14 medical units had been outfitted and sent to serve in France (Crofton 2013; Joz-Rolland 2009), Serbia, Malta, Salonika, Romania (FitzRoy and McLaren 2013), Corsica and Russia.  As hospitals, they were well regarded and many of the doctors, nurses and volunteers were awarded medals for their skills in caring for the wounded by the host countries after the end of the war.    

Louisa Jordan QN
Sister Louisa Jordan was one of the Queen’s Nurses who served with SWH. She was posted to Serbia during the First Word War. Louisa was born in Kelvinside Avenue, Glasgow on the 24 July 1878.  She trained in Crumpsall Infirmary, Manchester before returning to Glasgow to work at Shotts Fever Hospital. She then moved to live and work as a district nurse, Queen’s Nurse (QN) in Buckhaven, Fife.  She joined the SWH in December 1914 and went to work with the First Serbian unit arriving in Salonika late December 1914. You can read more about her from the Scotland’s War project.  Louisa Jordan QN served with the SWH from December 1914 until her death of typhus in Serbia on the 6 March 1915. Louisa Jordan is to be honoured in her home city of Glasgow. Like many other QNs, she served her community as a nurse at home and abroad with compassion and care.  

One of the founding principles of QNIS is, ‘the pioneering of new services and co-operation with other agencies’ (QNIS 2019 p19), so the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital is a fitting tribute to this former QN, the legacy of other QNs and the wider contemporary caring community.   

References 
CROFTON, E., 2013. Angels of Mercy A Women's Hospital on the Western Front 1914-1918. Edinburgh: Birlinn.  (ebook available via RCNLibraries)
FITZROY, Y., McLAREN E.S., 2013. Scottish Nurses in the First World War with the Scottish Nurses in Roumania and A History of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. London: Leonaur. 
JOZ-ROLLAND, I., 2009. Royaumont ….Si Loin des Landes écossaises. Roman: Paris. 
LENEMAN, L., 1998. Elsie Inglis. Edinburgh: NMS. 
QNIS., 2019. Newsletter and Review 2018. QNIS: Edinburgh.