Battersea
Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park.
History
Batter ...
, London on 18 April 1886, to Leonard Strong McManus and Julia Emily McManus, ''née'' Boyd. Her father was the brother of Caroline, wife of Sir Edwin Cooper Perry and son of James and Charlotte McManus, originally from Killeaden, Kiltimagh,
Co. Mayo
County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the Taxus baccata, yew trees") is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Conn ...
, Ireland. Though not born in Ireland, her father told her that Killeaden would always be her home. She was the eldest of four surviving children and her siblings were Dermot Arthur (Diarmuid A. MacManus), Sarah and Desmond. Her father was a doctor and two of her aunts were nurses.
She was originally educated by a governess before attending a day school in Nightingale Lane, Clapham and a boarding school near Worthing.
Career
In 1908 MacManus entered Guy's Hospital in London as a trainee nurse. She received her nursing certificate in 1911 and then trained as a midwife at the East End Mothers’ Home in Whitechapel. She passed her midwife exams in May 1912. MacManus worked as a relief nurse at the Government Hospital in Cairo and then at the West Norfolk and Lynn Hospital in
King's Lynn
King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...
. In spring of 1914, she returned to Guy's Hospital where she remained until the summer of 1915.
After the start of World War I she served as a nurse on the front lines in France. She joined the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve and arrived in France in August 1915, where she would treat injured soldiers in the trenches for 3 1/2 years as a Nursing Reserve Sister. MacManus later wrote in her biography ''Fifty Years Of Nursing - Matron of Guy's'', published in 1956, it was the responsibility of nurses to create homeliness in the “midst of the mud and blood, dust and death, in which they spent most of their days”. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross.
In January 1919, she resigned her position at the No. 2 General Hospital in Le Havre and returned to London. She became a member of the
College of Nursing
Nurse education consists of the theoretical and practical training provided to nurses with the purpose to prepare them for their duties as nursing care professionals. This education is provided to student nurses by experienced nurses and other med ...
, working in administration, and then rejoined Guy's. In 1922, she joined a Medical Research Council project on the impact of nutrition for children's development. The next year, she became matron of Bristol Royal Infirmary and was appointed principal matron for the
Territorial Army Nursing Service
Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC; known as ''the QAs'') is the nursing branch of the British Army Medical Services.
History
Although an "official" nursing service was not established until 1881, the corps traces its heritage t ...
.
In 1927 she was appointed matron of Guy's Hospital, a position she would hold until her retirement in 1946. She wrote ''Hospital Administration for Women'', which was published in 1934, and co-wrote ''Nursing in Time of War'' with Philip Henry Mitchiner in 1939. When World War II started, she organised the evacuation of Guy's to Kent and commuted back and forth from London throughout the war. She was in charge when the Guy's was bombed during the London blitz in 1940. The same year, she went to
Dover
Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
to see the arrival of the wounded soldiers from
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.
Throughout her career, MacManus was involved in the National Council of Nurses and the General Nursing Council for England and Wales. She was on the Royal College of Nursing council and was president from 1942 to 1944. In 1930 she was awarded an
OBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
for her service and in 1947, she was appointed a CBE.
Later career and death
After the end of World War II MacManus was exhausted. She retired from Guy's in 1946 and moved to Mayo. She visited the West Indies in 1947 to assist in an investigation by the Colonial Office on nursing practices in the British colonies, and went to Turkey in 1949 and the Netherlands in 1952 with the British Council. She published her autobiography ''Matron of Guy’s'' in 1956 and wrote a number of children's stories, including ''Mary and her Furry Friends'', a series which was broadcast by the BBC in 1964. She appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme '' Desert Island Discs'' on 23 May 1966.
MacManus died in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar, Mayo, on 22 February 1978, aged 91. She was buried in the cemetery of St Michael’s Parish Church in Ardnaree, Ballina. In 2007, Guy’s Hospital named a building Emily MacManus House in her honour.