The Portrait of a Lady: Judith Godden on Lucy Osburn
Author: Christine Hallett
Introduction
Perhaps it is fanciful to draw a comparison between Judith Godden's Lucy Osburn and Henry James's Isabel Archer.[1] Osburn was a real individual who made a significant impact on nursing in nineteenth-century Australia. Archer was a character whose disastrous - and fictional - betrayal during the same era captured the imagination of generations of readers on both sides of the Atlantic. However spurious the comparison may seem, the parallels between the two characters as they were conveyed onto the page by their authors are compelling. Both were born as ‘ladies' and socialised to enact a high-status but essentially disempowered role. Both were emotionally-vulnerable orphans who confronted the uncertainties and pitfalls inherent in the role of ‘provincial young ladyhood' ironically referred to some decades later by another mentally-tortured middle-class female, Vera Brittain.[2] And both were punished by societies that desired to make use of their attributes but could not tolerate their independence of spirit.
The portrayal of character
Judith Godden has painted her portrait of Lucy Osburn with consummate skill. Avoiding the common biographical pitfalls of idolisation or celebration, she has portrayed Osburn as a person we can like and admire almost as much for her faults as for her more obviously fine qualities. Osburn, with her elitism and snobbery, her brusqueness and lack of social grace and her judgemental attitude, lives through the pages of Godden's book - a vibrant, forceful, uncompromising character, and a person of great spirit. She was born in Yorkshire in 1836 into a family that suffered what was seen as the unforgivable social crime of bankruptcy. Osburn was only six years old when her father lost his wealth in 1842 and her family was forced to live apart in ignominious dependency on a range of relatives.[3] Lucy and her siblings were, throughout their lives, offered financial and emotional support by their cousin, Henry Carr and his wife Jane. These two became Osburn's trusted mentors for the rest of her life, (though she actually spent much of her childhood supported by her maternal aunt, Lucy Ridsdale). Osburn's association with the Carrs was to be as occasionally damaging as it was frequently supportive. Henry Carr's forceful influence on the contract Osburn drew up with the New South Wales Government may have begun the process of alienation between Osburn and Nightingale;[4] and his circulation of a letter, in which she referred to conversations she had had with Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh in 1867, almost destroyed her career.[5]
The economic uncertainty and emotional impoverishment of Osburn's childhood is clearly conveyed by Judith Godden, as is her subsequent rise to one of the most influential and highly-paid colonial positions open to a woman in the second half of the nineteenth century. A well-crafted biography is able to suggest the formation of certain elements of its central character, without offering direct heavy-handed analysis, and then to demonstrate how those elements play out in later life. The reader is offered the satisfaction of a God-like omniscience - seeing everything and understanding the reasons behind each development. In reading Godden's earlier chapters we feel we are observing the laying-down of the fracture-lines in the deepest layers of Osburn's character. Later in the biography we see some of those lines crack and others hold. We feel we understand why.
One of the most satisfying insights the reader is offered into Osburn's character is her indomitable, adventurous spirit, a spirit that took her to work alongside her cousin, Edward Atkinson, Assistant to the Physician of the English Hospital in Jerusalem at an early stage in her career.[6] It is not clear how much experience of surgical nursing Osburn obtained during her time in Jerusalem, but she later claimed that it had been substantial. More intriguing is the insight into her character that is gained of her own descriptions of the very different work she undertook ‘breaking in horses on the Syrian plains'.[7]
Through Godden's book we gain a sense of the precariousness of social and economic life in Victorian Britain, a precariousness that was to a great extent, perpetuated in its Australian colony. Yet we also gain a sense of the increasing flexibility, openness and freedom of late-nineteenth-century colonial society, a comparison that is convincingly conveyed by Godden's portrayal of Osburn's own increasing openness. We are invited into the world-view of a woman who is slowly dropping her defensively elitist attitudes and embracing the more open culture of the still-nascent Australian society, and it is easy to find oneself taking Osburn as a paradigm case representing the experience of many middle class ‘colonials' who perhaps began by defining themselves as even more British than those who remained at home, and eventually came to embrace a nascent national identity.[8]
Colonial culture: its freedoms and constraints
Godden's book thus offers not just a portrayal of an individual or an insight into nineteenth-century nursing. It is also a fascinating portrait of a nineteenth-century culture. The emigration of Osburn as one of six ‘Nightingale nurses' to Sydney in the 1860s offers us not only an example of British colonialism but also of an Australian modernising ‘drive' which recognised the value of women's professional development. The fact that the then Colonial Secretary, Henry Parkes, contacted Nightingale to request that she send out a group of nurses, rather than looking for other ways to develop nursing within the colony itself was probably partly the result of colonial deference to what was seen as a legitimate central authority; yet it was also an indication of the renown Nightingale had gained through her nursing work in the Crimea, and her subsequent ‘reforms'. Godden offers us an intriguing portrait of a colony that was essentially the same, and yet subtly different from its ‘mother-country'. She also captures the intrigues and dangers of hospital life, painting in dark and murky tones the background to Osburn's work in the Sydney Hospital. Her portrayal of the surgeon, Alfred Roberts and the manager , John Blackstone, who became Osburn's implacable enemies, are revealing, offering the reader an insight into the nature of nineteenth-century medical power and highlighting the difficulties encountered by female nurses in attempting to carve out their own ‘spheres of influence'.[9]
Godden's portrayal of Osburn's life also brings the reader to the heart of the religious tensions inherent in Victorian society. Osburn was born into a society dominated by two powerful and highly emotive social forces: the Evangelical Revival and the fear of the potential power of a newly-emancipated British Catholicism.[10] Godden's biography of Lucy Osburn, like Jo Manton's earlier portrayal of Dorothy Patisson illustrates the impact of these powerful forces, firstly as part of the drive that motivated middle class women to nurse, and secondly as one strand of the tortuous and highly dangerous social networks that could so tragically derail their reforming efforts.[11]
Nightingale and Osburn
Godden's portrayal of Lucy Osburn is a masterly insight into an extraordinarily complex character. Yet, it also conveys the ‘added value' of offering us a new perspective on the character of the most famous, powerful and spirited Victorian nurse of all - Florence Nightingale. Many of Godden's empirical data are drawn from the voluminous correspondence which passed between Osburn and Nightingale during Osburn's early years as Lady Superintendent of the Sydney Infirmary.[12] Although Osburn's letters are much more completely preserved than Nightingale's, Godden has taken a wide trawl of Nightingale's letters to other individuals such as her mentor Henry Bonham Carter and the Matron of St Thomas Hospital, Mrs Wardroper, searching for material that could cast light on her relationship with Osburn. These data allow us to gain an insight into Nightingale's motivations and purposes in sending a team of nurses to establish ‘Nightingale nursing' in the British colony in Australia; they, further allow us an almost microscopic examination of Nightingale's fears, anxieties and prejudices, as these played-out in her relationship with Osburn.
The literature on Florence Nightingale is fairly extensive and offers a fascinating portrayal of a character that has been variously viewed as the epitome of positive Victorian values,[13] a mystical healer,[14] and a weak, self-centred manipulator.[15] Nightingale's works are becoming readily accessible. Thanks to the wide-ranging efforts of Lynn Macdonald and her collaborators, both the complexity of Nightingale's character and the importance of her influence on nursing are becoming increasingly open to observation.[16] Godden's work puts a number of facets of that character under the spotlight of scholarly scrutiny: we are invited to appreciate Nightingale's rigour and strength of purpose, while at the same time being reminded of her highly judgemental attitude and occasional lack of understanding. Above all, we are offered a portrait of Nightingale as the holder of a set of frighteningly rigid traditional Victorian values - values that appear remarkably judgemental to the modern eye.[17]
Lucy Osburn: a ‘Nightingale Nurse'
St Thomas' Hospital, where Lucy Osburn obtained her ‘Nightingale training' prior to being sent to Sydney as the representative who would establish this ‘Nightingale model' had, until fairly recently been presented in uncomplicated and celebratory terms as one of Nightingale's great achievements. This perception was challenged when Monica Baly famously questioned the value of the nurse training obtained at the school. Godden's extensive researches support Baly's earlier work and suggest that Nightingale herself was aware of the limitations inherent in the St Thomas' training.[18]
Lucy Osburn entered the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas' Hospital in September 1866. Nightingale's intention was that the training should be rigorous in terms of the acquisition of both theoretical knowledge, and ‘hands-on' nursing skills such as the observation of the sick, the maintenance of a healthy ward environment, the application of fomentations, dressings, bandages and leeches, the moving and washing of helpless patients and the preparation of nourishing food.[19] The Matron of the Hospital, who was also Head of the School, Sarah Wardroper appears to have singled-out Lucy Osburn as the individual most suited to leading the expedition to Sydney at a very early stage in her training. Although clearly not the strongest student, Osburn appears to have coped well and passed as ‘moderate', ‘good' and occasionally ‘excellent' in assessments of her character and capabilities. Yet she suffered from ill-health at various points in her training, and the seeming urgency of the need to select a leader for the expedition to Sydney may have meant that her experience was somewhat curtailed.
Nightingale met Osburn shortly before her departure for New South Wales, and expressed concerns, that although clearly energetic, intelligent and highly educated, Osburn was ‘as hard as door nails' and did not present as the ‘motherly' persona preferred by Nightingale as a Lady Superintendent of Nurses.[20] Nightingale's judgement - though probably overly harsh may have been, in some respects, shrewd. Throughout her time in Sydney, Osburn's relationships with many of her nurses were strained, and at times conflictual. Of the five ‘Sisters' who travelled with Osburn to Australia, only two, Mary Barker, and Bessie Chant, remained her friends after leaving the Sydney Hospital. Eliza Blundell, Annie Miller and Haldane Turriff all, at one time or another, entered into serious dispute with their Lady Superintendent, dispute that could, at times be very damaging to Osburn's position and authority. Nevertheless, it appears that, with time and under the influence of the more open and permissive Australian culture, Osburn's attitude mellowed considerably. She appears to have had good relationships with the Australian nurses she trained after her arrival at the Sydney Hospital, and upon her death a tablet was erected to her memory in the hospital chapel, by ‘her sorrowing nurses'. The clarity and restraint of Godden's discussion of these relationships and the conflicts that characterised some of them marks her out as a scholar of great sensitivity, who shows concern for her subjects even as she strives to capture the realities of the situations she describes.[21]
Conclusion
Was Lucy Osburn a ‘real-life' Isabel Archer? In this review I have argued that it was Osburn's identification as a lady that determined her fate. Her status was both the reason behind her success and the obstacle that undermined her efforts. Judith Godden's Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced is a rare example of one of those subtle, understated biographies that speaks volumes not only about its subject, but also about the time in which she lived. Empirically meticulous and written in beautifully restrained language, this book stands as one of the most valuable recent texts in the history of nursing. Godden refrains from didactics or polemics; preferring to convey her message to the reader through the directness and clarity of her style. This is one of the most skilled modes of history-writing. The book's complex themes are conveyed almost as a by-product of the process by which we are drawn into what Anne Marie Rafferty refers to as ‘a riveting read'.[22]
Through her compelling portrayal of Osburn, Godden instils into her readership a deep understanding of a nineteenth-century social phenomenon: a nascent female profession which moves optimistically towards status and recognition, yet finds itself mired in social convention and caught in the dangerous webs of political intrigue and religious unrest.
The social and political forces that dictated the choice of Lucy Osburn as Nightingale's representative in New South Wales were later to create the very circumstances that militated against her success. Osburn, having entered what later became identified as a somewhat inadequate mode of training, was chosen to lead the expedition to Sydney, not because she was the most clinically competent of the nurses available, but because she was from an acceptably middle-class background; she could be relied upon to behave as a lady. Osburn may not have been given the opportunity to obtain a sound grounding in the clinical practice of her time. Her nursing skills were limited by the fact that she entered the elite ‘Nightingale School', whose training subsequently proved to be somewhat flawed, by the curtailment of her time in the School (which was partly also due to illness) and by her status as a privileged ‘lady probationer', which limited the ‘hands-on' element of her experience. Godden presents us with the fascinating, admirable, but flawed character of Lucy Osburn, who was a ‘safe' choice from the social point of view, but not necessarily the best option as a leader of nurses. In doing so, she provides, in one broad biographical sweep, an insight into the central dilemma at the core of nursing: the almost irresolvable conflict between social acceptability and grounded clinical skill.
[1] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, (Sydney, Sydney University Press, 2006); Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, (London, Signet Classics, 1995 edition)
[2] Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925, (Glasgow, Collins, 1980 edition, first published 1933)
[3] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, p.19.
[4] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, p.61.
[5] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006: on the attempted assassination and subsequent nursing of the Prince Alfred, see pp.96-101; on the disastrous letter, see pp.119-133.
[6] Osburn stayed with her cousin and his wife and family from late 1857 to November 1960. She was ‘companion and governess' to the family, but appears also to have spent time working in a nursing capacity in the hospital: Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, pp.24-29.
[7] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, p.29.
[8] On nineteenth-century nursing in the British colonies, see also: Judith Godden and Carol Helmstadter, ‘Women's Mission and Professional Knowledge: Nightingale nursing in colonial Australia and Canada', Social History of Medicine, 17, (2004) 157-74.
[9] Godden's discussions of the way in which Blackstone and Roberts used the Royal Commission of 1873 to attack and undermine Osburn is particularly revealing: Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006: Chapter 16, pp.222-237.
[10] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006: see the discussion on pp.16-19.
[11] Jo Manton, Sister Dora: the Life of Dorothy Pattison, (London, Methuen and Co, 1971); Osburn's own difficulties are illustrated throughout Godden's text. One particularly interesting example of the way in which Osburn's ‘enemies' used the religious anxieties of the time to attack her was the ‘Bible Burning' episode in Chapter 14: Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, pp.192-206. On the religious influences on the development of nursing, see Sioban Nelson, Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns and Hospitals in the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); Carol Helmstadter, ‘Robert Bentley Todd, St. John's House and the Origins of Modern Nursing', Bulletin of Medical History, 67 (1993) 282-319.
[12] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006: for a discussion of the nature of these letters, and their value as sources, see pp.134-149.
[13] Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon, (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, New York, Penguin Books, 1986 edition)
[14] Barbara Dossey, Florence Nightingale, Mystic, Visionary, Healer (Pennsylvania, Springhouse Corporation, 2000). See also: Barbara Montgomery Dossey, Louise C. Selanders, Deva-Marie Beck, and Alex Attewell, Florence Nightingale Today: Healing Leadership, Global Action (2005)
[15] F.B. Smith, Florence Nightingale: Reputation and Power (London, Croom Helm; New York, St Martin's Press, 1982). Smith's work has now been somewhat discredited by Lynn Macdonald's and others' subsequent research, but remains an important and influential text.
[16] Macdonald and her collaborators are currently working on a sixteen-volume compilation of Nightingale's writings. Amongst the texts available at time of writing are: Lynn McDonald, (ed.) The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale: Volume 1, Introduction to Her Life and Family (2001); Volume 2, Florence Nightingale's Spiritual Journey (2001); Volume 3, Florence Nightingale's Theology: Essays, Letters and Journals; Volume 4, Florence Nightingale on Mysticism and Eastern Religions (editor, Gerard Vallee); Volume 5, Florence Nightingale on Society and Politics; Volume 6, Florence Nightingale on Public Health Care; Volume 7, Florence Nightingale's European Travels; Volume 8, Florence Nightingale on Women, Medicine, Midwifery and Prostitution; Volume 9, Florence Nightingale on Health in India (editor, Gerard Vallee); Volume 10, Florence Nightingale on Social Change in India, (Guelph, Canada, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001-2007)
[17] Godden offers valuable information on Nightingale's own career: Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, pp.33-36.
[18] Monica Baly, Florence Nightingale and the Nursing Legacy, Second Edition (Philadelphia, Bainbridge Books, 1998). See also: Zachary Cope, Six Disciples of Florence Nightingale, (London, Pitman, 1961).
[19] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, pp.53-55.
[20] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, pp.62-65.
[21] See, for example, Godden's helpful overview of the careers of the five ‘Nightingale' Sisters subsequent to their leaving the Sydney Hospital: Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, pp.313-317.
[22] Judith Godden, Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced, 2006, Foreword by Anne Marie Rafferty, pp.ix-x.
