The Lamb Family. Two Trailblazing Missionary Nurses

Following on from my previous blog introducing the incredible Lamb family (parents Canon Benjamin and Louisa Lamb) , I now turn to the three missionary sisters - Florence, Jessie and Maud. After studying and obtaining qualification in the medical profession, these remarkable women left their comfortable family home in Yorkshire to dedicate their lives in the service of others in India and South China.

 

FLORENCE'S STORY

 

Florence, whose memorial piqued my interest in the family, was born in 1874 in Thirsk. Her brass memorial is in St James Church Clapham, Yorkshire where her father had been the Vicar for  many years.  It is a "facsimile" of the headstone of her grave in Fuzhou, South China. 

 

 

I was intrigued to see  the inscription stating that she was "A CEZMS missionary and trained nurse, at the hospital in Atlo Nguong, South China"..... On researching her sisters, I discovered that they too carried out missionary work for this organisation. Time to find out more!

 

The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (CEZMS) also known as the Church of England Zenana Mission, was a British Anglican missionary society established to spread Christianity in India via women. It would later expand its Christian missionary work into Japan and Qing Dynasty China.There is a lot of information about the society online and I have posted links below.  Women in India at this time were segregated under the purdah system, being confined to a women's quarters known as a zenana into which it was forbidden for unrelated men to enter. The zenana missions were made up of female missionaries who could visit Indian women in their own homes with the aim of providing them with medical help and education. The first mission station was established outside the provincial capital of Fuzhou in 1884.

 

 

I have been  unable to ascertain exactly when Florence made the long and surely arduous, trip to China. I do know that she qualified to be a member of the Incorporated Society of Physiotherapists and Masseuses at Guys Hospital in London in 1900. Sadly, Florence died  such a long way from home in China in 1903. According to a newspaper report, she had been a missionary for 18 months so it is likely she headed overseas not long after qualifying.

 

 

 Royal College of Nursing Obituary

 

 

 The notice of Florence's death in 1903

 

 

 

Photograph by John Thomson dated 1871

Wellcome Collection: Public Domain 

 

 

 MAUD'S STORY

 

While Florence had served as a missionary in China her sisters Maud and Jessie travelled to India where they both remained for many years.

 

Maud was born in 1882 in Wheldrake, Yorkshire. According to the Nursing Register, she trained from 1906-1909  in Brighton, where she qualified. In 1911 she is living with her parents at the Clapham Vicarage, Yorkshire. Her occupation is listed as "trained nurse: Hospital". It is touching that her entry in  the 1939 register also states that she is a "trained nurse SR" as does her sister Florence's memorial. I suspect that around this time, nursing was becoming a more regulated and perhaps more appreciated, profession and the sisters and her parents were very proud of their profession.

 

 

Fundraising Advert for the Missionary Society

 

I do not know when Maud travelled to India but I cannot find her on the 1921 Census and I suspect she had been in India for some time after qualifying in 1909. I know from various newspaper reports that she nursed at the St Catherine's Hospital in Amritsar together with her sister. Indeed, the nursing register shows that she is still working there in 1931. 

 

 

 

 

 

(Photo supplied by the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society.)

STAFF AND PATIENTS OF ST. CATHERINE'S HOSPITAL, AMRITSAR.

 

I know that she returned several times to the UK as I have found her representing various aspects of the nursing profession on several nursing committees, including those who worked overseas. She was a very active member of the profession both as a nurse but also has an administrator and lecturer.

  

 

RCN report on Nurses' Missionary meeting

Magazine of the CEZMS

I haven't included a lot of information about the Zenana Missionary Society here: there is an awful lot of information available online! For further information, see links below - although a quick Google (other search engines are available!!) will bring up many more links!

At some time between 1931 and 1939 Maud returned to England and to the South Coast where the remaining members of her family are living. She died in 1966 and is buried in Bath Abbey Cemetery, where four of her siblings and her parents are also buried. Her headstone states that she served overseas for 25 years.

 

Maud's headstone

Florence's interesting memorial has started me on quite a family story, of which Florence and Maud are just a part. They must have been wonderfully intrepid and driven: not content with being "just" missionaries spreading the Christian religion - they clearly wanted to help in a practical and indeed possibly life saving way and Maud in particular must have had a big impact over the 25 years she served. 

My next blog will be about an even more intrepid sister - Jessie who, not content with qualifying as a doctor in the early years of the 20th century, decided to take her skills to the distant land of India.  

 Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/222982502/maud-lamb: accessed July 4, 2026), memorial page for Maud Lamb (1882–27 Jun 1966), Find a Grave Memorial ID 222982502, citing Bath Abbey Cemetery, Widcombe, Bath and North East Somerset Unitary Authority, Somerset, England; Maintained by woowoo (contributor 49949980).

 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43738/43738-h/43738-h.htm

https://missiology.org.uk/blog/zenana-missions-work-fuh-kien-province-china/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0961202920010204 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England_Zenana_Missionary_Society 

British Newspaper Archive

Ancestry.co.uk

https://rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/volumes/31/Volume%2031%20Page%20354

https://rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/volumes/70/Volume%2070%20Page%20263 

Say hello to the Lamb family. 8 siblings and an astonishing tale of Victorian public service

As a historian of women's lives in the UK in WW1, I usually photograph any church memorials that I come across. of women who nursed in the Great War.  However. while visiting St James' Church, Clapham in Yorkshire, I came across a lovely memorial to a nurse who died in a drowning accident in China in 1903. The memorial gave a tremendous amount of  information about Florence Westhall Lamb. Most notably that she was a "trained nurse" and that she had been a missionary in China at the time of her death, aged 29.  

 

Florence's memorial. 

It states that it is a "facsimile" of her memorial stone in China

It gives a tremendous amount of information and is also a beautiful bronze. 

 

The story on the memorial intrigued me, so I decided to not only research Florence's life, but also the missionary organisation - "CEZMS" - that is mentioned on the memorial. While researching Florence, I wanted to see if she had any brothers and sisters who might also have served. Little did I know what I would discover! Her parents were Canon Benjamin Lamb and Louisa, nee Whythead. They had 8 children who excelled themselves in public service and the professions. They were:-

 

• Florence Lamb - trained nurse and missionary to China
• Gilbert Henry Lamb ordained priest, Chaplain and missionary who worked in India for 45 years. 
•  Dr Jessie Lamb -qualified doctor whose mission was in helping women and girls in India
•  Maud Lamb - trained nurse and missionary in  India
•  Dr Harold Victor Lamb - Hospital surgeon and GP who also served with the RAMC in WW1
•  Percy Hutchinson Lamb - A qualified Agriculturalist who was a  high ranking Civil Servant in India who also served in the Nigerian Carrier Corps in WW1
•  Charles Edward Lamb - solicitor and notary public. The 1939 register show he volunteered for several organisations on the Home Front (as indeed did his wife, Alice, who carried out nursing duties)
•  Last, but definitely not least, is Louisa Lamb, who never married or took up a profession  but whose role in carrying out "domestic" duties no doubt included helping her father in his ministry and selflessly looking after the family and their home.  

 After doing much research, I belatedly found this helpful newspaper obituary of Benjamin!

 

 

 

 

 

What an incredible family! Not only did 7 of them achieve professional success, they all dedicated their lives to public service either in the medical profession abroad as  missionaries or at home,  serving their country in world wars or as Civil Servants abroad.

 

I thought Florence's story would be covered in one blog. I did not, however, reckon on finding such an illustrious bunch in her family! So I will leave the Lambs for the time being and return with the story of the three medical sisters - two nurses and one doctor - who worked tirelessly on behalf of women and girls in India and China. 

 

 

 

St James Church Clapham. The Lamb siblings will have been very familiar with the

church that their father preached at. 

The Nursing Times (Very!) short-lived Nurses' Fund

 I have been researching WW1 nurses for many years so was suprised to come across the Nursing Times Nurses' Fund - I had never heard of it!

 

I recently came across a  photo of a nurse  in The Nursing Times in which it stated that "F J Pease is one of "our" nurses". That piqued my interest so I decided to research Nurse Pease but also try to find out more about the fund, which was started in the early years of the War.

 

Nurse F J Pease 1915 

 

 There is very little information about the Fund, but it appears that nurses in the UK were asked if they would like to donate a small amount of their pay to help pay for a nurse to be sent abroad. Nurse Fanny Jane Pease was on of four nurses whose roles were funded in this way. As can be seen in the cutting below, once it was obvious that the War was going to last very much longer than anticipated - and with very many more casualties, the Nursing Times decided that due to a governmental and far more organised and busness-like process of sending nurses abroad, that the fund was no longer necessary. Indeed, when one thinks of the 1000s of nurses who served abroad - the Fund's capabilities were not enough to make any impact and so they discontinued it. 

 

  

 

 The Nursing Times article on discontinuing the fund

 

 

 

Letter from Nurse Pease

 

Fanny Jane Pease was one of the Nursing Times' nurses. She was born in 1867 in Hampstead London. Her father was a geometry teacher. He was admitted to a "lunatic" asylum in 1892 where he died in 1893.  Fanny was working as a private nurse in Hampstead in 1901. I cannot find details of her training but she is on several Nursing Registers and was sent abroad as a trained nurse with the British Red Cross. She worked for the entirity of the War and was awarded the RRC (2nd class) in 1919.

 

 Nurse Pease's Red Cross Card

 

Nurse Pease continued with her nursing career after the War, nursing in the Brompton Consumption Hospital. She had retired by 1939 but still refers to her nursing profession, stating her occupation as "Retired Hospital Nurse" in the 1939 Register. She never married and died in 1946 aged 80.

 

Nurse Pease's photo in the Nursing Times led me to discover a small part of nursing history, albeit a very small scale and for a very short time! Her career and sense of duty however, lasted for decades beyond the short-live "Nursing Times' Nurse Fund" 

 

Sources

The Nursing Times (BNA archives)

Ancestry.co.uk

Red Cross Volunteers of WW1 records. 

A Joyous Wartime Wedding Story with a tragic outcome

While browsing copies of the newly digitised copies of The Nursing Times on The British Newspaper Archive I saw a lovely photo of a wedding between a nurse and a soldier that took place in July 1915. The paper named them as  Bessie Irene Titchmarsh and Corporal Percy Southall. I wondered what their lives had been like before their marriage and after - indeed, did Percy even survive the War? 

 

Percy was born in 1884 in Saffron Walden and worked as a clerk in his father's firm - The Saffron Walden Steam Laundry Company Limited was founded in 1897 and still operates  from the same site in Saffron Walden since the early 1900s.

 

Percy volunteered for the army early in the War  - before conscription - - on 9th Feb 1915. He was a despatch rider in the Royal Engineers, attached to an Essex Regiment. 

 

Bessie was born on 21st March 1894 in Ipswich. Her father was a local civil servant. Bessie trained as a nurse at the East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital from 1913 until 1916.  According to the report of the wedding, this was the hospital that Bessie was nursing in at the time of her marriage.

 

 

Percy and Bessie on their wedding day

26th July 1915, Ipswich 

BNA 

 

 

The day after the outbreak of World War One, the Board of the East Suffolk & Ipswich Hospital met. It agreed to offer a number of beds to the Admiralty, to receive wounded or sick men from the Navy. It was soon discovered that the Army’s need was far more urgent and the Admiralty gave permission for the Board to make its offer to the Military Authorities instead.  Of course, if it became necessary, wounded sailors would be admitted.

 

 The hospital at the time of Bessie's nursing career

credit: see link below 

 

 

 I wonder if Bessie is in this photo!

 

Along with the photo, the wedding itself was reported in the local papers.It was described as the first "khaki" wedding in the town. One report gives a lovely description of the service, the clothes of the bride and bridesmaids, the presents and even the "going away" outfit! Bessie chose to marry in her nursing uniform (surely showing her pride at "doing her bit" for the War as  her solidier husband was.) It was noted that she wore no jewellery in line with hospital regulations and she carried no flowers - just an ivory backed prayer book. The bridesmaids carried "patriotic" Union Jack flower baskets with red roses, that were strewn before the bride and groom.  It sounds rather lovely! 

 

What became of the couple after the wedding?The story took an unexpected turn as I delved deeper. Firstly though, the couple had a son, Peter,  in 1918. It would seem, however, that by December 1919 there were problems in the marriage. 

 

 

Percy seems to be disassociating himself from Bessie. Of course,  from the distance of over 100 years we have no idea if any "blame" lay with either of the couple. However, for Bessie, her life was to become even harder. Percy died on 17th November 1920 aged just 27 and leaving a widow and a one year old son. According to reports of his funeral, he had been ill in bed for year due to illness contracted overseeas. This can be confirmed by the fact that he was awarded the Silver War Badge - which was awarded to men (and some women) who left the forces because of illness or injury during the Great War. The report of the funeral is what made me delve deeper into the state of the marriange. In a very long list of mourners neithe Bessie or any of her family attended the funeral. We don't know and never will, if it was her choice to stay away or if his family requested it. However, Bessie was in receipt of a small widow's pension from the army.

 

What became of Bessie and her son? In 1921 she was living with her son and parents in Saffron Walden.. She is still using her nursing qualification - she is a health visitor for Essex County Council. However, yet another tragedy loomed.

 

In November 1938 Peter was killed in a road accident, along with a young female friend. He was just 20 and Bessie's only child. . There is a long report about the accident in the local paper. Bessie was called to give evidence.at the inquest, stating that Peter was a bank clerk and she had spoken to him the day before,

The following year shows her living in Harrow. The 1939 register entry is hard to read but it would seem her occupation is still connected to nursing and the care of those with TB.

 

Bessie died in 1985. She had survived her husband by over 60 years and her son by 40.  The photo of the happy couple and their lovely wedding foreshadows a tragic future of  the couple's estrangement and the early death of both Bessie's husband and her son - both dying in their 20s. 

 

 

 

 

https://greatwarhomehospitals.wordpress.com/home/ipswich-east-suffolk-ipswich-general-hospital/ 

Triplets born in 1916: The testament of a mother's love and resilience in Wartime

 

I found this photo in a copy of the Nursing Times in January 1916. It shows a nurse holding triplets! I wondered what the story was behind this photo. It must have been very unusual for a woman to be delivered of triplets that all survived the birth. I wondered if they survived into adulthood and who their parents were – did their father survive the War? 

The birth was announced in their local paper – the Staffordshire Sentinel – on 17^th January 1916. I discovered that their mother was Catherine May Kinght (nee Rigby). She married Frank Knight(aged 23) in October 1915 at the young age of 18 ; judging by the date of their sons’ births, it was a hastily arranged wedding!  And must have been something of a shock to the parents! 

 

I discovered that their father Frank was a Second Class Air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps.  Frank had been single and an electrician before the War. By 1921 he was living with his in laws, wife and sons and was  out of work. It seems likely that things were really hard for the family, especially Catherine. To be the mother of triplets at the age of 18 and with a marriage that may well have only taken place because she became pregnant must have been tough enough – but she was living with her three 5 year olds, parents and an unemployed husband. Sure enough, by the 1939 register it would appear that the couple had split up – Catherine living in an address in Kidsgrove and Frank was employed as an “electrician instructor”  in Ampthill. Indeed, Catherine died in 1951 in Staffordshire and Frank died in 1971 in Cheshire. Remarkably all three boys survived into adulthood, at a time when there was no NHS and high infant and mother mortality and during three long years of War. What a remarkable testament to a mother's resilience. 

I did try to trace the rather nervous looking Nurse Timmins but didn’t really have enough information although I have found a Sarah Timmins who trained and worked in Stoke on Trent at the time and place where the boys were born. Perhaps it is she, peering at the camera rather shyly!

 Sources:

British Newspaper Archive

Ancestry.co.uk