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Saturday 16 April 2016

Research on nursing at Cornwall Records Office

A notebook kept by a nurse in Cornwall during World War One
/Photo courtesy Cornwall Records Office
A fantastic collection of archives on nursing at the Cornwall Records Office: these will certainly be a starting point for our work on the next stage of Heart of Conflict. Bridging Arts volunteer Valerie Grigg is particularly interested in nursing in Cornwall during World War One: she worked as nurse throughout her life, in London as well as Camborne.
Notes from women who started to nurse in Cornwall during the war years are a fascinating records of hospitals set up in large private houses at that time. It happened in Downton Abbey! And in real life, it happened in Cornwall: several county families opened their doors to the wounded and turned their houses into hospitals or convalescent homes.