Queen's Nursing Institute

The origins of the Queen's Institute lie in the fund raising organised among `the women of England' for an offering to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Golden Jubilee in 1887. After the commission of a set of jewellery, there remained ?70,000, and the Queen chose to use the money to support district nursing; a plan for a district nursing service was sketched out by William Rathbone and Florence Nightingale. The Queen's private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, suggested an order of nursing sisters rewarded by honours and decorations, based at St Katherine's Hospital. (This establishment was a descendant of the medieval hospital chartered by Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III, which was originally near the Tower of London but had moved to Regent's Park following the construction of St. Katherine's Docks; the foundation had declined and it had been proposed that its funds should be redirected to the good of the sick poor.) The Rathbone/ Nightingale scheme was approved in July 1888 and a Provisional Committee set up with the Duke of Westminster as Chairman and Mr Rathbone as Honorary Secretary. The Master of St Katherine's Community, the Reverend Arthur Lewis Babbington Peile, was made President of the Jubilee Institute, and the headquarters was over the Chapter House at St Katherine's in Regent's Park. (The link whereby the Master of St. Katherine's was also the head of the Institute was formally broken in 1904.) It was hoped that funds from St Katherine's would augment those of the Institute. In 1889 Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute for Nurses (QVJIN) was incorporated by Royal Charter.

The aims of the Institute were to apply the Queen's gift to training nurses in district work in order to supply affiliated nursing associations with thoroughly equipped workers and to put in place a body to supervise the work. The Metropolitan and National Nursing Association, established in 1876, was adopted as the central training home. District Nursing Associations were invited to apply for affiliation to the Institute.

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