MURIEL KNOX DOHERTY: A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
An article appearing in a London newspaper described Muriel Knox Doherty as ‘a practical-looking woman, with a kindly smile, [who] had one rule only in her Belsen hospital. It was "No rules and regulations allowed". She ran her hospital for the maimed in body and soul without orders.’
Miss Doherty was an outstanding Australian nurse who made many contributions to the profession throughout her long and varied career. She was, for example, an exceptional clinical nurse, a well-loved nurse teacher, and a skilled nurse administrator. Always willing to try something new, to take up a challenge, she remained passionate throughout her long life about her beloved nursing and did whatever she could to advance the profession.
At the same time she was an avid collector of material about nursing and anything that related to nursing and the health-care sector. She was a hoarder of memorabilia about her own life as well, and it would appear that she very rarely threw anything away.
Miss Doherty, unlike many nurses of her generation, wrote long letters about the people she met and what she thought of them; events in her own life; letters to newspapers, politicians and government bodies, and anyone she thought might be able to help her achieve something that she saw as necessary for nursing. Once she had decided that something needed to be done, she single—mindedly pursued her vision until it became a reality.
As well as writing about everything, she also kept copies of almost everything she wrote, and much of this collection is now held in the Doherty Collection at the New South Wales College of Nursing, where it remains a largely unmined source on nursing, Miss Doherty herself, and the health-care sector in general. Other parts of her collection appear in a variety of places throughout Australia and overseas, including the Mitchell Library (Sydney), the National Library (Canberra), the Archives at the National War Memorial (Canberra), and the Yad Vashem Archives in the Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem, Israel. She also left behind three manuscripts, two of which have already been published. The first is a very detailed history of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, her beloved training school.1 The second is her autobiography, which gives many insights into her professional life.2 The third manuscript contained the letters written to her family and friends during her time as Matron of the Bergen-Belsen concentration Camp, and form the basis of this book.
Miss Doherty began her nurse training at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, on 5 November 1921. Prior to this she was a teacher in a private girls’ school for three years, and resigned during World War I, at the age of twenty-one, to take up full-time voluntary Red Cross work. She joined the Australian Red Cross Number 6 Voluntary Aide Detachment at North Sydney, gaining her St John’s Ambulance First Aid and Home Nursing Certificate, and continued this voluntary work whilst helping out at home until 1921.
Early in 1919 the worldwide pneumonic influenza epidemic hit Sydney, decimating the population. Miss Doherty went to work at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, in her capacity as a voluntary aide, to assist with the care of those stricken with this deadly disease. Her work so impressed the then matron, Miss Boissier, that she was asked to consider commencing her nurse training. Due to family reasons Miss Doherty was unable to do this until two years later, in 1921. She loved every bit of her four-year training as a nurse and called this period the happiest years of her life.
Following her graduation as a registered nurse in 1925, at which she was awarded the Alfred Roberts Medal for general proficiency, Miss Doherty took up an appointment as a Charge Nurse in the gynacology ward at the Royal Prince Alfred, and was promoted to Sister-in-Charge after six months.
The changing face of Muriel Knox Doherty. Clockwise, from top left: as a student nurse at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney (c. 1921); her passport photograph in 1954; and as a most active senior citizen (c. 1975)
Early in 1930 she decided she wanted to go to England. She had managed to save £100, a not insubstantial sum given the poor salary of nurses at this time. It was enough for a one-way fare to London. She was thrilled to be in England, and her records demonstrate how strong her patriotic and personal feelings for the old country were.
She then took the important personal decision to enter the Sister Tutor course at King’s College of Household and Social Sciences, University of London. At the time there was no similar course available in Australia and there was only one qualified nurse teacher in New South Wales. Miss Doherty’s main motivation for undertaking this course was her desire to contribute to improving nursing in Australia.
Having successfully completed the Sister Tutor course, she returned to the Royal Prince Alfred, where she was responsible for establishing a model nurse training school, and for introducing the first preliminary training school in New South Wales. The model nurse training school catered for nursing students across the four years of the general nursing program and was preceded by the preliminary training school, an innovation within New South Wales. Nursing students attended the preliminary training school, receiving both theoretical and clinical tuition, for a number of weeks prior to commencing their training and entering the wards on a full-time basis. Prior to the establishment of this school, nursing students commenced working in the wards without receiving any tuition. In her first year as Sister Tutor, Miss Doherty was responsible for 230 nursing students, and her average workload was sixty-five hours per week.
Ominous signs of a further world conflict prompted Miss Doherty to respond to an appeal in August 1935 for volunteers for the Australian Army Nursing Service. She was accepted and appointed as a staff nurse in the Army Reserve. In 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, she was called up as Sister Clerk to the Office of the Principal Matron, Miss E. Kearey, Australian Army Nursing Service. But what she really wanted was to go on active service as a nurse (preferably overseas, into the war zone), rather than spending her time in an administrative capacity. She continued to work towards this and was finally offered the choice of a position as Matron of the 1400-bed hospital which was in the process of being built at Concord, in Sydney (and which was to become the Concord General Repatriation Hospital), or Matron in the inaugural Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service. She chose the latter and in 1940 took up her position as 1st Squadron Leader, Matron-in-Charge, Number 3 RAAF Hospital, Richmond.
Miss Doherty went on to serve with distinction, becoming Principal Matron and gaining a promotion to Wing Commander. Her military services were further recognised in 1945 when she was awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal (1st Class) whilst working in Bergen-Belsen (Germany). Her investiture ceremony, conducted by King George VI at Buckinghamn Palace, London on 16 October 1945, was held exactly six years after her first appointment to the AANS.
At the same time as she was establishing the RAAF Nursing Service, she played a role in the first government committee to investigate nursing in New South Wales. This committee, established by the Minister for Health, published a report with a number of far-reaching recommendations for the reorganisation of the nursing profession in that state. Miss Doherty’s files, notes, newspaper clippings, and other documents relating to her work on this committee are held in the State Archives—of New South Wales.
In 1944 Miss Doherty co-authored with two other Australian nurse educators the textbook Modern Practical Nursing Procedures.3 This book, which was reprinted many times, was to become the standard introductory textbook for nursing students for many years throughout Australia.
Despite these successes, Miss Doherty still wanted to work overseas, directly in the war zone. To this end she retired from the RAAF Nursing Service in 1945 and joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration organisation, travelling to London before taking up her appointment as the Chief Nurse and Principal Matron of the recently liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. During her busy year at the camp she continued her life-long habit of writing about her experiences and collecting memorabilia.
From Bergen-Belsen she took up a position, through UNRRA, as a consultant to a group working to assist in the rehabilitation of nursing education in Poland. At the end of 1946 Miss Doherty returned to Australia and worked for the establishment of a college of nursing. She went on to become a foundation member of the Council of the New South Wales College of Nursing and an active member of the Council of the Australasian Trained Nurses Association, and she helped to inaugurate the National Florence Nightingale Memorial Committee of Australia, becoming one of its first two vice-presidents.
Upon her return to Australia, Miss Doherty deposited her collection from Bergen-Belsen, including a series of her letters home, with the Jewish community in Sydney. The community subsequently asked her permission to send this important and unique collection to the Holocaust Museum and Archives (Yad Vashem), then being established in Jerusalem, Israel. Miss Doherty willingly gave permission, and the majority of her collection is now held in these archives.
Miss Doherty travelled widely in Europe from 1955 to 1957, returning to Australia for a short period, before going to live in England in 1961. She returned home for good in 1965 and took up residence in the Queen Mary Nurses Home at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, to enable her to undertake further research for her history of the hospital. She continued her active involvement in matters related to nursing and the health-care sector until her death in 1988.
R. Lynette Russell
Sydney, 1999
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1 Doherty, M. K. (1996) The Life and Times of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia, edited by R. L. Russell, New South Wales College of Nursing, Sydney.
2 Doherty, M. K. (1996) Off the Record: The Lij’e and Times of Muriel Knox Doherty 1896—1988, edited by R. L. Russell, New South Wales College of Nursing, Sydney.
3 Doherty, M. K., Sid, M. B. & Ring, O. I. (1944) Modern Practical Nursing Procedures, Dymocks Book Arcade Ltd, Sydney.