Abstract
Miss Jean Jacomb born into a wealthy family, was at the age of 22 a student nurse at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London in 1917 where she nursed convalescent soldiers from World War I. Her midwifery training was in the slums around Whitechapel where a nurses uniform and medical bag provided a safe passage in the East End of London. For a while she worked in South Africa and India and returning to UK in 1923 she progressed to appointment as matron at the now re-named Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea. In 1938 she was appointed matron to The London Clinic during the years of World War II following which in 1949 she retired at the age of 55. She then travelled the world extensively by ship, always first class. She died in 1988.
Introduction
Jean Jacomb was born on 11 January 1894 as the 10th child and sixth daughter of Reginald (1855–1945) and Edith Jacomb (1856–1934). She never married and was one of the few females of this large family who followed a specific career. Her father was a wool broker in the City of London and the family lived at Ewell House, Ewell, Surrey. Jean became a probationer nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, commencing on 25 April 1916 and progressing to become Matron of The London Clinic in 1938 until her retirement in 1949. 1
Early years
As a child Jean Jacomb was clumsy, often worsened by her short-sightedness, and was sometimes bullied by her elder sisters. She wore very strong heavy glasses and rather plain clothes. 2
At the age of 22 she was appointed nursing probationer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital (Barts), London, on 1 August 1916 with a starting salary of £9 per year, having served a three-month probationer-on-trial period from 25 April 1916. On her first examination in April 1917 she passed second out of 41 and third out of 31 on her second examination in April 1919. As a probationer, Miss Jacomb had to rise before dawn, scrub floors and ensure there were no rats in the wards! Comments about her during the four years of training range from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ with only one comment from matron, in her fourth year, which states ‘she resented being spoken to’ (Figure 1).
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Jean Jacomb during training, standing in the back row third from left at ‘Barts’ Hospital in 1918, nursing wounded men during First World War. Family photograph donated to The London Clinic Archives.
Miss Jacomb’s midwifery training took place in the slum area of London around Whitechapel. Some of her experiences at this time were recounted to her family, including stories of delivering babies in front of a household already full of children with everything damp and covered in fleas. Despite the crime and devastation all around her in the East End of London, she stated she was never molested or hurt since a nurse’s uniform and medical bag were respected by all. Her experiences as a trainee midwife were very similar to those shown in the BBC television drama ‘Call the Midwife’, a series based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, set in the East End of London during the 1950s that showed the best and worst of home deliveries among desperately poor people. 4
In 1920 and 1921, following graduation Jean Jacomb worked in South Africa and India. Later, back home in England at Barts, she was successively to become Ward Sister, Matron’s Office Sister (1923), Assistant Home Sister (1929) and Superintendent of District Midwives (1932) at 19 Lloyd Square, London. 5 Miss Jacomb then was appointed Assistant Matron at Ancoats Hospital, Northern Manchester and Assistant Matron at Cambridge House Nursing Home during 1930 and 1931. In 1933 she became matron of The Cancer Hospital, now The Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital, in Chelsea. 6
Appointed matron at The London Clinic, 1938
From September 1939 onwards, London was being hastily evacuated and prepared for Second World War. The government was anxious for leading hospitals to move away from the vulnerable capital but there was no question of the Clinic ‘leaving London’ (Figure 2).
Matron of The London Clinic, 1938. Family photograph donated to The London Clinic Archives.
Upon her appointment as matron, Miss Jacomb was tasked with closing the Clinic to make preparations for the coming war, and alterations were started to put it on to a wartime footing with the last patients being discharged on 16 September 1939. Walls were then strengthened and the upper floors vacated. The theatre complex, located on the eighth floor, was moved to the basement as a security measure and installed in the space that previously had housed the X-ray and examination departments. The character and presence of the matron was vitally important in maintaining efficiency and discipline during this frantic time. The Clinic eventually opened for patients on 7 June 1940. The night nurses slept on the sixth floor, and at night patients on the third and fourth floors went to the basement where shelters had been constructed. Nurses wore tin hats and carried stirrup pumps. 7
The Clinic’s new role was as a base hospital for the military, as required, with staff being vetted for security since secrecy was essential when high-ranking officers chose to be treated at the Clinic rather than at one of the military hospitals outside London. 8 Archibald McIndoe (1900–1960), Harold Gillies (1882–1960) and Rainsford Mowlem (1902–1986) were involved in surgically changing, and later repairing, the facial appearance of some key players in undercover and espionage operations with the Special Operational Executive. Sir Max Horton (1883–1951), submarine chief, was so impressed that he arranged for his top submarine commanders to attend regularly for check-ups, looking for symptoms of stress. Archie Sinclair (1890–1971), the Air Minister and later first Viscount Thurso, and General Dwight D Eisenhower (1860–1969), Commander in Chief of the Second Front, both worked from the Clinic preparing for D-Day while they were patients. Reasons for admission from this period noted in the patients’ register vary from routine dental and surgical procedures, delirium tremens and alcohol abuse, abortion, shock from air raid, melancholia and malaria. 9
During the Blitz the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) bombed London continuously from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, their objectives being to cause material destruction and break Britain’s morale. 10 There were occasions when the war came pretty close to the Clinic with staff routinely engaged in fire watching on the roof. The Luftwaffe dropped bombs indiscriminately and from nearby Primrose Hill a powerful anti-aircraft battery of guns sprouted fire and shrapnel, much of which came clattering down in Harley Street. In September 1940 six houses in Harley Street were destroyed by bombs, the nearest to the Clinic being number 121. During an external tour of inspection in the area a Clinic employee discovered an object that looked like a ‘German Bomb’; it was lying about 50 yards from the main building and close to the pharmacy. Bomb disposal units were called but the ‘bomb’ turned out to be an abandoned food canister. Bombs probably intended for Euston, one mile away, sometimes brought chaos to Harley Street and in November 1943 the Clinic made a claim of £145 for war damages to the Howard de Walden Estate.
A professional friendship was formed with Lady Almina Carnarvon (1876–1969) who, though lacking a nursing qualification, in 1919 created Highclere Military Hospital for wounded officers and later in the late 1920s ran Alfred House in 7–9 Portland Place, London, a home where high society and royalty were admitted for treatment.11,12 The ITV1 television series ‘Downton Abbey’ portrayed this remarkable woman under the guise of Lady Cora Grantham played by the actress Elizabeth McGovern. 13
Londoners still had babies. Josephine Barnes (1912–1999), an obstetrician at University College Hospital, used to deliver them at home, driving around in the matron’s car during raids with two mattresses strapped to the roof to guard against shrapnel. One delivery was made on the floor of a room without blackout curtains by the light of a storm lantern. 14 The Clinic continued to offer midwifery services during the war years although the number of babies born had dropped sharply from the years before the war, falling from 180 in 1939 to only 23 in 1940.
On 1 July 1946 Miss Jacomb was awarded an increase in the salary of matron from £500 to £750 per annum with effect from 1 July 1946.
Retirement
In 1949 Jean Jacomb decided to retire at the age of 55. At her retirement presentation on 1 December 1948 she was presented with a cheque for £500 and ‘a piece of fine silver’.
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Many speeches were made and the many letters received from her colleagues were read out, including that from Gilbert D Rees, House Governor from 1941 to 1973: I can think of no more onerous position than that of Matron in an institution of this sort under wartime conditions upon the home front. We may recall what went on in those times; how night after night the sirens sounded, the basement passage behind us filled with ambulant patients in deck chairs and on mattresses, the rooms in which we are now gathered were filled with beds brought down from the floors above, while the more phlegmatic of the patients elected to stay in the corridors or even in their rooms – where the nursing staff had also to stay. These were the occasions upon which Miss Jacomb so worthily upheld the tradition of her profession. If you walked about you would find her here, there and everywhere, always with that air of calm authority and command which one would expect. Well, the war ended and nobody was more relieved than Miss Jacomb, who had borne the brunt of it, that the building was undamaged and that there were no casualties among its inmates, at least from enemy action.
This sentiment was echoed by Sir Aynsley Bridgland (1893–1966), Chairman of The Board of Trustees of The London Clinic and others, including eminent clinicians Ranald M Handfield-Jones (‘H-J’) (1873–1978), Oswald V Lloyd-Davies (1905–1987) and Sir Philip Manson-Bahr (1881–1966). Miss Jacomb had nursed Royalty, Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965), Sir Anthony Eden (1897–1977), Field Marshall and First Viscount Alanbrooke (1883–1963) and many others including Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) ‘who wore too much make up in bed’. 16
Miss Jacomb, having remained a spinster, was devoted to her nursing career; her dominating and efficient manner hid a heart of gold. She enjoyed a very hectic social life with the many highly placed friends and contacts made during her career. She loved ballet and the theatre, and attending parties and dinners, many of which included ambassadors, actors and other nationally important figures who she helped to nurse (Figure 3).
Matron Jacomb with Stanley Baldwin, First Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (former Prime Minister), leaving the Clinic in 1938. Monty Garland Collection (photograph donated to The London Clinic Archives).
Other than the comments made at her retirement, it is not known what specific influence Miss Jacomb had on nursing, midwifery and the outcomes at the Clinic since there is a deficit of records from 1938 to 1945. There are virtually no written Clinic records as all ‘old’ administrative records presumably were destroyed sometime in the 1950s and 1960s. The records that do remain are patient registration ledgers in an unbroken record from 1932 to 1995.
This paper is based primarily on letters and other personal documents previously in the possession of Miss Jacomb’s nephew, all of which have now been donated to The London Clinic archives. This remarkable woman only became known because of these family documents and it demonstrates quite clearly the need for important documents not to be destroyed, often simply to ‘make space’, but to be held in an archive. Letters received by her at her retirement in 1948 give us the only factual information we have on her.
Gilbert D Rees, House Governor at The London Clinic, wrote ‘Hers was no easy task, but she approached it with the experience, wisdom and understanding which we have all recognised. Her work had already borne fruit when the war came upon us in 1939’.
A Geoffrey Evans, 7 Mansfield Street, Portland Place, W1 wrote ‘You have made a name for yourself in your devoted work for the London Clinic and you have made a good name for the Clinic’.
RM Handfield Jones, 149 Harley Street, London W1 wrote ‘I shall never forget your real kindness to me during the bombing of 1940-41 when “The Clinic” was my only home’.
Miss Jacomb retired from The London Clinic in 1949 after 11 years as Matron, at the age of 55. She was succeeded by Miss Joan Lewis from St Mary’s Hospital who was then Deputy Matron of the Clinic. She loved to travel (always first class), particularly cruising, and into her 80 s she was still travelling throughout the world including China, the West Indies, Brazil, India and, her favourite, South Africa, to which she returned many times. She also visited her sister Helen who was married to Lord Creasey, Governor General of Malta, a place visited many times in 1949 by the then Princess Elizabeth when Prince Phillip was stationed there while a serving officer in the Royal Navy (Figure 4).
A lady of fashion. Jean Jacomb at a fashionable wedding circa 1957 (family photograph donated to The London Clinic Archives).
At the age of 94 Jean Jacomb entered a Kensington Nursing Home, and there she always wore her pearls in bed. She was much revered by the nursing staff who were in awe that they had the ex-Matron of The London Clinic in their midst. She died on 13 June 1988 aged 94.
The recent admission to The London Clinic of Prince Philip in July 2013 is an example of the continuing legacy of excellent patient care that followed Miss Jacomb’s tenure as matron. The London Clinic, established in 1932 as a purely commercial venture, which failed, then came under the management of Sir Aynsley Bridgland as Chairman in 1938, a medical charity that continues as such to the present day.