Matching the Ideal? The First Generation of Nightingale Nursing Probationers, Sydney Hospital, 1868-84

Abstract

On 1 March 1869, nineteenyear-old Nathalie Marx became a nurse probationer at Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary (from 1881, Sydney Hospital).1 There she expected to be taught the rudiments of Nightingale nursing under the superintendence of Lucy Osburn. Osburn, along with five other nurses who had all trained at the Nightingale School of Nursing, St Thomas's Hospital, London, had arrived in Sydney on 5 March 1868. She and her nursing team had been employed by the New South Wales Government, on the recommendation of Florence Nightingale, to reform nursing at the Sydney Infirmary and to spread the new system of Nightingale nursing throughout the colony. Before the arrival of Osburn and her band of nurses, the only comparable group of nurses in the colony was the Sisters of Charity who provided general training to members of their order.2 Nathalie Marx and her family were political refugees who had fled the upheavals of their native Germany, and were reputed to have arrived in Australia in 1865 with no understanding of English. Nevertheless, the family made the arduous journey to the mid north coast of NSW and established themselves as storekeepers at the tiny settlement of Bellingen. They initially prospered, with extensive property holdings and a vineyard, but later went bankrupt.3 It is not known what caused Nathalie to seek a means of livelihood elsewhere. Nor is it known how, despite living in the obscure backblocks of Bellingen, she entered Sydney Infirmary with the recommendation of 'Mr Roberts', who was most likely Alfred Roberts, the infirmary's honorary surgeon and one of the most influential medical practitioners in Sydney.4 Roberts soon became a bitter opponent of Lucy Osburn 's and we can speculate if his recommendation prejudiced her against her young probationer. It is possible that Osburn and Nathalie Marx could communicate in German; Osburn knew the language5 although possibly the Marx family only spoke a dialect. Nathalie Marx stayed a little over two years at Sydney Infirmary, then left to visit her parents before returning to Sydney, pre-