Grace Neill facts for kids

Elizabeth Grace Neill (born Campbell; 26 May 1846 – 18 August 1926) was a very important nurse from New Zealand. She worked hard to create laws that would require nurses and midwives to be properly trained and officially registered. In 1901, New Zealand became the first country in the world to have such laws.

Grace Neill's early experiences as a nurse inspired her to improve nursing practices. Her work as a factory inspector also led her to push for other social changes.

Grace Neill's Early Life

Elizabeth Grace Neill was born on 26 May 1846 in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was the oldest daughter in a family of nine children. Her father, James Archibald Campbell, was a retired colonel. Her mother was Maria Grace.

Grace's family valued discipline and intelligence. She was a very smart child with red hair and was quite tall. She received a good education, partly at home and partly at a private school in Rugby. Grace wanted to study medicine, but her father did not approve.

Instead, she became a trainee nurse at St. John's House Sisterhood in London. This place provided nurses to hospitals like King's College Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital. Grace easily finished her training in general nursing and midwifery.

She then became the head nurse at the Pendlebury Hospital for Children near Manchester. She worked there for two years. Then she met Dr. Channing Neill. Her father did not approve of him, thinking he was not from a high enough social class. But Grace had made up her mind. She married Dr. Neill, and her father disowned her. The couple moved to Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, where their only son, James Oliver Campbell Neill, was born.

Grace Neill's Career

Grace Neill's husband moved to Queensland to start a medical practice. In 1886, when Grace was 30, she and their four-year-old son joined him. Two years later, her husband died. Grace then started working as a journalist to support herself. She was a sub-editor for a newspaper called the Boomerang. She also wrote for the Brisbane Daily Telegraph and the Courier.

A year later, the Queensland Government asked her to join a special group called a Royal Commission. This group looked into working conditions for people in shops and factories. Because of her journalism work and her understanding of social problems, she was appointed as New Zealand's first female factory inspector in 1893.

She also got a job as an assistant inspector in the department that managed hospitals, mental health facilities, and charity aid. Grace had a very heavy workload and a lot of stress in this role. However, it gave her a great chance to improve healthcare practices. Once another doctor, Frank Hay, took over some of her duties, Grace focused on a big project. She wanted to create a good nursing service for all of New Zealand.

Important Contributions to Nursing

Grace Neill had a groundbreaking idea: nurses should be officially registered to practice. She knew this would protect the public from untrained people and also make nursing a respected profession. She helped Dr. McGregor write a bill for a Nurse's Registration Act. In 1901, this bill was passed by Parliament. It was the first law of its kind in the world!

This new law required nurses to have three years of training. They also had to pass a state exam and be listed on an official state register. This helped general nurses, but midwives still had no such requirements. It was very important to train midwives properly in New Zealand.

However, there were only a few schools that trained midwives in New Zealand. This made it harder to pass a law for them. So, Grace Neill was given the job of creating a training plan for midwives. She also had to set up state maternity hospitals where this training could happen.

Her goal was to have hospitals for mothers that were run by women and had women doctors. These hospitals were mainly for the respectable wives of working men. Grace herself was a widow raising a child, so she understood hardship. She also believed that allowing everyone into these hospitals would lower their status.

Grace faced a lot of opposition from doctors. They thought these new hospitals would hurt their own income and control over the healthcare system. Finally, the Midwives Registration Act was introduced to Parliament by Richard Seddon in 1904.

Seddon then started setting up the first state maternity hospital. It would be a place for working-class wives to give birth and a training school for midwives. Grace Neill had to find a suitable house and get it ready within three weeks. She succeeded, and the first hospital opened on Rintoul Street, Wellington, in June 1905. It was named St Helens Hospital to honor Seddon, who was born in Lancashire, England.

After this important event, more maternity hospitals opened across the country. These included St Helens Hospitals in Dunedin (1905), Auckland (1906), and Christchurch (1907). These founding hospitals were very important in providing good care for mothers and babies.

Later Life and Legacy

Grace Neill's influence went beyond New Zealand. In 1889, she was a main speaker at the nursing section of the Congress of the International Council of Women in London. Because of her impact there, she became an honorary member of the Matron's Council of Great Britain. She later served on a committee that helped write the rules for the International Council of Nurses.

In 1901, she used her knowledge of social conditions again. She investigated how charity aid was managed in Sydney for the government of New South Wales. Grace Neill later retired from her job with the New Zealand government. She joined her son, who had moved to the United States.

However, her health got worse, so she and her son moved back to New Zealand in 1909. She lived there until World War I. During the war, she worked as the sister in charge of the children's ward at Wellington Hospital. After a long illness, Grace Neill died on 18 August 1926. She was crippled and blind at the time of her death.

To remember Grace Neill's important work in New Zealand and nursing, the Grace Neill Memorial Library was created. It is located at the nursing postgraduate school in Wellington. Also, the women's hospital at Wellington Hospital has a section called the Grace Neill Block.