‘From the sphere of Sarah Gampism’: the professionalisation of nursing and midwifery in the Colony of Victoria

In the nineteenth century, while the Colony of Victoria was still a fledgling settlement, many of the hospitals of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Europe had instituted forms of nursing and midwifery training. When graduates of these training schemes emigrated to Australia with their knowledge, skills and experience, they found health practice to be haphazard and lacking in organisational standards. Individual immigrant women rose to prominence as managers of Victorian hospitals, and superintendents of homes for trained nurses. Through professional networks of their peers and compatriots, these women succeeded in placing the profession of nursing on a firm footing, and were instrumental in the emergence of professional organisations for trained nurses and midwives in Victoria, including the Melbourne District Nursing Society, the short–lived Nurses Association of Australasia (1892), and the Victorian Trained Nurses Association (1901). Their leadership was to have a profound influence on the way nursing and midwifery were regulated in twentieth century Victoria. In this historical review, we trace the movement to professionalise nursing and midwifery which emerged in the Colony of Victoria during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.