Welcome to the UK Association for the History of Nursing (UKAHN)

The Association is autonomous and self-governing, and a constituent member of the European Association for the History of Nursing (EAHN). The membership comprises individuals who are historians of nursing.

As well as information about the association you fill find other resources on the site to help researchers and others, interested in the history of nursing.

Call for Abstracts! 2024 UKAHN Colloquium University of Greenwich.

Please submit abstracts of approximately 250 words by the 8th of March 2024 in the following format to: j.stephens@greenwich.ac.uk

For full details please see 2024 Colloquium 

Hold the Date!

The date for the 2024 Colloquium has been confirmed for Friday, June 28th at the University of Greenwich. For full details please see 2024 Colloquium Please ensure you are on our mailing list and following us on X @UK_histnursing for the latest updates. 

The UKAHN Bulletin, Vol 11 (1) 2023

The editorial team is pleased to announce that the 2023 Bulletin is available to read at https://bulletin.ukahn.org/ 

We would like to thank all of our contributors for the excellent articles. 

The UKAHN Bulletin gets a new editor

We are delighted to announce that Professor Alannah Tomkins has agreed to take on the role of Editor for the Bulletin.

Handing over the baton is our current editor, Dr Sue Hawkins, who has produced three excellent collections. Keeping the momentum going through the pandemic and lockdown was a challenge, particularly as the Colloquium did not meet for two years. But she did it, including a special edition co-edited with Associate Professor Karen Flynn, showcasing scholarship in the history of nursing through the lens of ‘people of colour’.  Sue’s determination and skill and Karen’s expertise led to this unique and truly diverse, international collection of new and reproduced papers. As outgoing editor, Sue and the editorial team, are confident that the Bulletin will be in good hands under Alannah’s editorship.

Alannah Tomkins is Professor of Social History at Keele University, she has been working in the period of the ‘long’ eighteenth century for over twenty-five years.  Her research has focussed on the history of the English poor laws and the social history of medicine, her most recent book being Medical Misadventure in an Age of Professionalisation, c.1780-1890 (2017).   We are very excited that she has agreed to take this role on and we are looking forward to a stimulating 2023 edition, drawing on current and new research, including we hope, papers from the 2023 Chichester Colloquium. Alannah says:

The Bulletin has proved a vital resource for me in becoming a historian of nursing, and I’m privileged to take up the post of editor.  I hope to maintain and promote its role in providing information and publishing opportunities to people across the span of careers, among nurses and historians, students and academics alike.

 

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Congratulations to The Young Historians Project on the launch of: A Hidden History: African Women and the British Health Service in the 20th Century 

Great to see this excellent and long -awaited project reach its publication phase: If you missed it, the launch of the e-book and podcast which can be accessed via there website here.

Her War:  What does nursing do to nurses?

Her War, a new opera for soprano and trumpet about WWI nurses’ experiences of nursing trauma and PTSD, premiered at the Tête-à-Tête Festival 2021. Following the live premiere at the Cockpit Theatre, Gateforth, an Interactive Broadcast was recorded on 29 July. It was great to see our own Amanda Gwinnup, whose PhD is investigating  the post-war experiences of Britain’s nurse veterans who were left disabled due to their war service, speaking alongside the cast and developers about her role in advising on the script. Great also to hear nurses’ voices represented in this creative medium. Amanda’s blog explains more and can be found here.

The RCN History of Nursing Forum is seeking suggestions of nurses to nominate for inclusion in  the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
Nurses are under represented in this important dictionary, and those included are not representative of our wide and varied profession. Do you have a nurse in mind who might be included? Teresa Doherty, Joint Head, Library and Archive Service at Royal College of Nursing offers more detail, and how to nominate, here.
The RCN Library and Archive: Past Caring

This is a new podcast series about the history of nursing. Each episode takes inspiration from RCN Library and Archive exhibitions exploring topics such as women’s health, myths about nursing, and learning disability nursing.

Past Caring is available on most podcast platforms. Listen to the first episode on Soundcloud here or subscribe to the series on Apple Podcasts.

 

 

 

LATEST BLOG:

‘People are curiously incredulous of a danger they cannot see’. In her blog,  Sarah Rogers [PhD student University of Huddersfield] expands on this quote, From Eva Luckes, Matron of the London over 100 years ago, which sums up the problem, then as now, of people’s inability to understand infection


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog

UKAHN 25th Annual Colloquium

UKAHN 25th Annual Colloquium: Greenwich University June 2024 By Dr Janet Hargreaves On this 25th year of the UKAHN Colloquium we were lucky to be hosted by the University of Greenwich in the historical Royal Read more…