Introduction
Joan Dorothy Rhodes’s life is distinguished by her pivotal role as the district nurse and midwife at West Coker Surgery from 1946 to 1976.[1] She played a critical part in providing community nursing at a time when the National Health Service transformed healthcare in this country.
Birth in Little Eaton
Joan was born two hundred miles from West Coker, in the Derbyshire village of Little Eaton, on 7 May 1916.[2] Her mother, Frances, was the village schoolteacher. Her father, George, was engaged in war service, working as a machinist at the Rolls Royce factory in Derby.[3]
Little Eaton is a village about three miles north of Derby. In the early twentieth century, its population was about one thousand, and it had a railway station, paper mill, elementary school, parish rooms, a church and two chapels. The village also bore the signs of earlier industrialisation in the form of a canal, abandoned quarries and a disused wagonway.[4]
Mother’s family
Joan’s mother’s family, the Whittakers, had a long history of working in the parish as quarrymen and stone masons. This history went back at least as far as her great-great-grandfather, Abraham Whittaker, who died in 1857.[5] Joan’s grandfather, Charles John Whittaker, followed this tradition, working in Little Eaton as a stone mason all his life. In 1885, he married Alice Riddle, the daughter of a paper maker.[6] When he died in 1906, aged 44, he left a widow, his daughter, Frances, who was nineteen, and two sons aged twelve and six.[7]
After her father’s death, Joan’s mother, Frances, may have felt a duty to care for her mother and younger brother. This responsibility likely influenced her choice of husband and ultimately shaped Joan’s early life. On Christmas Day 1914, Frances married George William Rhodes at Little Eaton parish church.[8] George probably wore his army uniform as he was a private in the horse transport company.
Father’s family
Before the war, George lived with his parents, Samuel and Hannah, and two sisters, Violet and Emily, at Shirland, a large village about twelve miles north of Little Eaton, which had been the home of the Rhodes family for generations.[9] However, in his youth, George’s father, Samuel, moved to Cutthorpe near Chesterfield to work in the coal mines. He lived there for more than twenty-five years, working mainly as a coke burner.[10] In 1866, he married a farmer’s daughter, but they had no children.[11] After his wife died in 1885, Samuel married again and had three children: George, Violet and Emily.[12] When Samuel returned to Shirland in the 1890s, he was initially a farmer and then set up in business as a milk seller.[13] When they were young, George and his sister, Violet, worked in their father’s milk-selling business, but by 1914, George had become a machinist.[14]
George was among the first men to volunteer for war service in 1914. He enlisted at the Ripley Drill Hall on 14 September 1914 and was assigned to a horse transport company based in Bradford.[15] By the time he married, he had been in the military for three months.
It is unknown how George and Frances met. Before the war, Frances sang in several local concerts, so it is possible George saw her on stage.[16] She continued performing for the first few years of her marriage.[17] When she sang at a Red Cross concert at Little Eaton, a local newspaper described her as “a local contralto favourite.”[18]
Childhood
George and Frances lived mainly apart for the whole of 1915. However, on 25 January 1916, George was assigned to work at the Rolls Royce factory, which enabled him to live with his wife at Alfreton Road, Little Eaton.[19] His wife’s mother and younger brother, Charles, also lived there so the house was pretty full as it only had four rooms.[20] Charles joined the Royal Navy in January 1918 but returned home about eighteen months later.[21]
Located about eight miles from Little Eaton, the Rolls Royce factory was founded in 1908 to make cars, but it changed to making aero engines during the war. George was discharged from the military on 14 December 1918. He may have lost his job at the factory, too, as the census of 1921 records him as a driller out of work.[22] However, the Rolls Royce company probably reengaged him when the economy recovered, as in 1939, he was a driller at the “motor works.”[23]
George’s hobby was keeping and exhibiting bantams and rabbits. He began as a teenager and continued to at least 1930.[24]
By June 1926, George, Frances, and Joan had moved into a house on Highfield Road, Little Eaton, which they called “Nesfield.”[25] This was only a short distance from Alfreton Road, so Joan would have retained close contact with her maternal grandmother, Alice Whittaker, who lived there until she died in 1951.[26]
Religious faith
Joan’s religious faith was important to her. Her father probably influenced her embrace of Methodism. His father was a member of a Primitive Methodist chapel at Shirland for over forty years, serving as a steward and treasurer for part of that time.[27]
Primitive Methodism appealed to working-class people who liked plain services in simple language. Local congregations ran their chapels democratically. They emphasised education, discipline and moral improvement and tended to see God’s work in everything.
These beliefs and values formed part of Joan’s cultural milieu. Although the Primitive Methodists had no chapel in her village, the United Methodists did. Joan probably attended Sunday School lessons at the chapel, and in 1931, she won a special prize in a United Methodist scripture examination.[28]
Nursing career
Joan began her nursing career five years later, enrolling at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. The training took three years, during which time she gained extensive knowledge and practical experience. She obtained her general qualification on 23 June 1939.[29]
She then spent a few years working in the Isolation Hospital and Sanitorium at Derby, qualifying as a fever nurse on 10 June 1942.[30]
She then moved to Taunton to learn midwifery, qualifying on 25 March 1944.[31] Possibly, a wartime directive required her to move there.
In 1946, she became a district nurse attached to West Coker Surgery, a role that she fulfilled with unwavering dedication.[32]
While working at the surgery, she lived at three different addresses at various times. In 1950, she lived at 18 East Street, West Coker, and in the late 1950s at 1 Townsend Villas, Chiselborough.[33] Later, she moved to Forge Lane, East Chinnock.[34]
By the time she was in her mid-forties, most of her close Derbyshire relatives had died. Her maternal grandmother died in 1951, her father in 1956, and her mother in 1959. However, she retained fond memories of her parents and named her house at East Chinnock “Nesfield” after her parents’ home in Little Eaton. She probably bought the East Chinnock property after selling her parents’ home in 1960.[35]
Retirement
Joan retired in 1976 after thirty years working in the Yeovil area.[36] Soon after retiring, she made her will. Five pages long and containing pecuniary legacies to twenty-four people, the will demonstrates her generosity and the value she placed on personal relationships. One beneficiary was Dr Derek Wells of West Coker, to whom she left £100 “in the hope that he will buy an easy chair to relax in on his retirement from practice.” She also left £100 to West Coker Methodist Church, a testament to her religious faith and her commitment to this local church. She also made many specific legacies of items such as her car, colour television, washing machine and record player to more than a dozen people.[37]
Death
Joan died in Yeovil District Hospital on 12 February 1982, aged sixty-five. Her funeral service was held at West Coker Methodist Church on Friday, 19 February, and a memorial service was held at East Chinnock Church on the following Sunday.[38]
References
[1] Western Daily Press, 16 February 1982, p.7.
[2] RG15, piece 16227, schedule 73;1939 Register (Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, Derby); Civil Registration Death Index, Yeovil, Q1 1982.
[3] British Army Pension Records 1914-20.
[4] Kelly’s Directory of Derbyshire, (1912).
[5] HO107, piece 2141, folio 552, page 21; Little Eaton Burial Register. entry for 18 October 1857.
[6] Little Eaton Marriage Register, entry for 27 June 1885
[7]. Civil Registration Death Index, Shardlow, Q2 1906; Little Eaton Burial Register, entry for 21 June 1906; RG13, piece 3212, folio 212, page p.
[8] British Army Pension Records 1914-20.
[9] RG14, piece 21073.
[10] RG10, piece 3615, folio 8, page 10; RG11, piece 3437, folio 59, p.9; RG12, piece 2765, folio 75, page 4.
[11] Old Brampton Marriage register, entry for 25 December 1866.
[12] Barlow Burial register, entry for 22 July 1885.
[13] RG13, piece 3244, folio 66, page 26.
[14] RG14, piece 21073; British Army Pension Records 1914-20.
[15] British Army Pension Records 1914-20.
[16] Belper News, 24 February 1911, p.4; Belper News, 2 January 1914, p.5;
[17] Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 18 June 1915, p.3; Alfreton Journal, 20 October 1916, p.4.
[18] Alfreton Journal, 20 October 1916, p.4.
[19] British Army Pension Records 1914-20.
[20] RG15, piece 16227, schedule 73.
[21] Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Service Records, 1903-1922.
[22] British Army Pension Records 1914-20; RG15, piece 16227, schedule 73.
[23] 1939 Register.
[24] Alfreton Journal, 15 February 1907, p.7; Derbyshire Times, 7 November 1908, p.12; Derby Daily Telegraph, 20 November 1920, p.5; Derby Daily Telegraph, 22 August 1927, p.3; Derby Daily Telegraph, 15 November 1930, p.10.
[25] They must have left Alfreton Road before June 1926 because in that month, Joan’s uncle, Charles Gerald Whittaker, married Alice Ferguson, and Alice joined Charles and his mother at Alfreton Road. The will of Joan’s great-uncle, Charles Nebo Whittaker, dated 5 February 1931, gives Joan’s address as Nesfield, Highfield Road, Little Eaton.
[26] Derby Evening Telegraph March 1951.
[27] Ripley and Heanor News and Ilkeston Division Free Press, 20 November 1936, p.4.
[28] Derby Daily Telegraph 15 January 1931, p.11.
[29] The Register of Nurses, 1943, p.2933.
[30] The Register of Nurses, 1943, p.4634.
[31] The Roll of Practising Midwives 1943-44, p.380.
[32] Western Daily Press, 16 February 1982, p.7.
[33] The Roll of Midwives Practising in 1950/51 p.395; The Roll of Midwives Practising in 1954/55 p.358; The Roll of Midwives Practising in 1954/55 p.380.
[34] The will of Joan Dorothy Rhodes, dated 24 September 1976, proved at Bristol on 22 March 1982.
[35] Administration of the estate of Frances Annie Rhodes granted to Joan Dorothy Rhodes at Nottingham on 24 February 1960. Value £4,774 8s 7d.
[36] Western Daily Press, 16 February 1982, p.7.
[37] The will of Joan Dorothy Rhodes, dated 24 September 1976, proved at Bristol on 22 March 1982.
[38] Western Daily Press, 16 February 1982, p.7 and p.10.