Matrons of the Charterhouse

We have come to the end of an era at the Charterhouse.  For well over 200 years we have had a Matron to look after the welfare of the residents.  After the Master, she had the most important job in the institution. She was responsible for the domestic side of Hospital life; ensuring that the place was clean and in order, and that the inmates looked after their rooms; attending to the care of the sick and infirm; and doing much of the day-to-day management. Yet the role did not exist for the first four centuries of the Charterhouse’s life. In 1776 a request by the Master John Bourne to employ a Matron was turned down by the Court of Chancery. It was part of an attempt to “use four spare rooms as sick-rooms or else increase the number of inmates” from its current, and historical, 26. A Matron was needed “to attend such Poor Persons as may be ill in the said Hospital”. The Court read the Foundation Document, found nothing about a Matron (or an apothecary who was also requested) and said no.  The ruling seems to have been ignored.

There is a single reference in a document to a matron called Mrs Williams, but the first Matron whose name is recorded, and who may have been the first to hold the position, is Jane Burn. She was born in Beverley in 1791 and was a seamstress before taking the Charterhouse job in about 1830. She appears on the five censuses from 1841 to 1881 in this role. Successive Masters who filled out the census returns were unsure about her age, underestimating it by up to ten years. As she got older she seemed to acquire more duties. In 1852 the Porter died and Jane took over both his room and his duties, as well as her own. In 1867, “in recognition of the work done by her with the new rooms”, she was given a pay rise of 4/- per week and a gratuity of one guinea. In 1871 the Advisers reviewed the role of the Master and agreed that he would appoint a matron and a nurse, but they would each have to occupy a room and count as inmates, receiving the same allowances, except that the Matron would get 12/- rather than 6/-. This suggests that they expected and wanted the 80-year-old Jane to go, especially as they stipulated that future appointments would not be for life.  But she stayed. In 1877 the Master suggested “that the meritorious services of Miss Jane Burn, the Matron of the Hospital, should be recognized by a gratuity of £10.” By 1881 she had the assistance of a cook, Fanny Adamson, but there was no hint of an official deputy or of a nurse. The Advisers made plans several times for what would happen after her. In March 1881 they decided that a surgeon would be appointed on £80 p.a.; a Matron on £40; two nurses under 45 years of age; and a porter on 10/- a week. Jane died aged 93 in 1884, and is the only person other than Masters, donors and their wives to have a memorial in the Charterhouse Chapel.

The Advisers were faced with a contradiction of their own making. If the Matron and Nurse were to count as inmates they could not be removed from their rooms to make way for their successors. If they should be made to retire they needed a pension arrangement, but this does not seem to have been considered. Jane Burn may well have been a remarkable woman, but there was as yet no way of avoiding the dilemma she posed in her later years.

Jane’s successor was Fanny Adamson, who was then aged 37. She had worked in the Charterhouse since at least 1871 as a servant and then as cook. By 1891 she had her 17-year-old niece, Susan Barber, living with her, and by 1901 Susan was officially assistant Matron. Little is recorded about Fanny. In 1892 her salary was increased from £18.4s to £21 p.a. In February 1895 she got her name in the papers when she tended to a resident who was badly burned in a horrific accident (treating her inappropriately, it seems, and was late getting her to hospital).  By 1899 Fanny received £42 p.a. with "two rooms, coals and other allowances” and her application for another pay rise was turned down. That all was not well is shown by the special clause in the 1901 scheme of governance: “The present Matron of the Hospital shall cease to hold office as from the date of this Scheme, and shall be entitled either to receive a pension out of the income of the Charity, with the approval of the Charity Commissioners, or to become a Sister of the Charterhouse, but with a stipend of 3/- a week in excess of the maximum stipend payable to the other inmates.”

It took the new Trustees a few months to get round to the problem of getting rid of Fanny, and they formed a sub-committee. That recommended that she be given a pension of 14/- per week. Her successor should get £60 a year, and a Nurse should only be appointed once the new Matron was in place. The Trustees then accepted the recommendation of the Charity Commissioners that the new Matron should be a qualified nurse. They would pay her £80 a year, and her Assistant Matron (who would no longer be a nurse) would get £40 a year. Fanny Adamson and her niece left the Charterhouse, but it became apparent that she would not go quietly.  In June 1903 “The Master reported that the late Matron, Fanny Adamson and her assistant, Susan Barber, were in the habit of visiting amongst the inmates, and that these visits had a tendency to lessen the influence of the present Matron and Nurse. He was of the opinion that it would be for the good of the institution if such visits were discontinued.” The clerk to the Trustees wrote to the two women to ask them to stay away. In 1918 Fanny asked for an increase in her pension of £36.8s, and was allowed a “war bonus” of 2/6d a week. Two years later she asked for either another increase or a room in the Charterhouse. She was given an increase to £1 per week. When Fanny died on 1st February 1922 a month’s pension which had been due was claimed by her niece, with whom she had been living.
The next Matron was Sarah Hutton. She was 33, the daughter of a Kendal builder, and had been working as a hospital nurse in Hull. Her assistant or “nurse” was Fanny Maria Mumby. Fanny had been living in the Charterhouse for at least 12 years with her widowed mother Ann. Her only occupation had been helping in her parents’ greengrocery, and at the age of 51 her qualification for the job appeared to be her familiarity with the Hospital. The two were appointed in February 1903. In September the same year Fanny resigned. The Trustees’ minutes are confusing about who followed her. It seems to have been E. J. Stephenson. But the young Martha Goundrill, appointed to replace her, resigned in April 1904. Two months later the Master reported that the Matron, Sarah Hutton, had been given 3 months notice. The reason is not given, but there appears to have been differences about the scope and hours of her work. Sarah appealed to the Trustees against her dismissal, and was allowed to resign instead. She was successful, three months later, in getting them to provide her with a reference. The Master was allowed to advertise for a new Matron and for a married couple to act as porter and nurse.

The advertisement gives us clues about the reasons for the staffing problem.  The Matron's salary was the equivalent of about £8,000 pa today, plus fuel and furnished rooms (how many rooms we are not told, but probably two).  She had to be a qualified nurse and work very long hours in "preserving order" among 130 inmates and nursing the sick.  That was no small task in the days when people were not removed to care homes when they became too ill or frail to look after themselves.  At least she didn't have to do her own housework.  That humiliating task fell to the Assistant Matron.  She and her husband would get the same pay between them as the Matron did.

The new Matron appointed was Lena Jordan, who lasted until she retired in 1910, without a pension.  She was followed by Henrietta Whiteford.  A separate post here details her life.  When Henrietta went back to army nursing in 1914 the Assistant Matron, Gertrude Glister, stepped up to become acting Matron, and when the Matron officially resigned in 1917 Gertrude's appointment became permanent.

Gertrude served as Matron right through very troubled times until 1948.  Like her predecessors she was responsible for looking after residents who, after the creation of the welfare state, would be placed in care homes.  She got a mention in the local paper in February 1939 on the funeral of a resident, Thomas Stainton Cartwright, who died just 5 months short of his 100th birthday.  Gertrude had been "like a little mother" to him.
War brought more difficulties, particularly when the bombing of Hull became intense in 1941.  The only shelter for the residents was the "long corridor" which runs the length of Old House, while the Master had his own shelter in the garden.  When a bomb badly damaged the Master's House and caused blast damage to the Charterhouse itself, it was Miss Glister who had to cope.  Evacuation of the residents began, and Gertrude refused to go until all of them were rehoused; then she moved into a flat in Spring Bank.  Throughout the remainder of the war, and until 1948, she kept in touch with the former residents.  When the buildings had been restored and were ready for re-occupation the trustees decided it was time for Gertrude to retire with a much-deserved pension.  She died in 1958 aged 86.

In the last 72 years the succession of Matrons has generally followed the same pattern.  It was no longer necessary to be a qualified nurse, since with the advent of the NHS medical help and the removal of residents to care homes was freely available.  A stint as relief Matron was followed by a full-time post as Assistant Matron and then, when the current Matron retired, moving into the senior role.  All Matrons lived in a flat on the site and undertook the necessary training (as did all the staff).  There may be some dispute in the future about who was the last Matron.  The last to be appointed as such retired in March 2020.  At that point a Warden was appointed in her place, a man, but the Assistant Matron stayed on until her own retirement 4 months later and was regarded as Matron.

Is the new era merely a change of title?  It signifies, we're told, that no medical care is available here, (although the word has other meanings), and it puts us in line with other similar institutions.  However, having a man in the role is certainly new, as is having a warden who does not live on site and works office hours (with 24-hour coverage being provided by several relief wardens).  Time will tell.