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Thursday <strong>June</strong> <strong>29</strong> <strong>2023</strong> 9<br />
the city’s most powerful women<br />
Maude announced in her letter<br />
that she knew the woman in<br />
question because – even though<br />
the patient wasn’t identified by<br />
Sheppard and Wells – it was<br />
obvious who they were referring<br />
to. She also said the woman had<br />
been under her personal care for<br />
years.<br />
And then she got stuck in:<br />
“The unfortunate sufferer is<br />
much distressed at the publicity<br />
now sought to be given, first<br />
without her knowledge or<br />
consent, and secondly because<br />
of the incorrect and alarming<br />
statements circulated as to the<br />
alleged contagious nature of her<br />
complaint,” she wrote, adding<br />
that the patient hadn’t actually<br />
talked to anyone about her<br />
plight, not least Sheppard and<br />
Wells.<br />
“She is not ‘lying prostrated<br />
from a disease of loathsome<br />
form’. She is able to walk about,<br />
enjoy fresh air, and I have<br />
taken her out and sent her for<br />
a drive, which I should be very<br />
unlikely to do if her condition<br />
were ‘a fruitful source of<br />
contamination’.”<br />
Maude also advised that<br />
the patient had refused any<br />
additional help beyond what she<br />
“receives already from private<br />
friends and the Charitable Aid<br />
Board” and that her sons were all<br />
healthy and in no danger from<br />
infection.<br />
The letter was followed by a<br />
CONTRIBUTION: Kate Sheppard was the leader of New<br />
Zealand’s women’s suffrage movement.<br />
note from the editor advising<br />
that donations would be<br />
returned to readers should it be<br />
found that the woman and her<br />
three sons were the ones at the<br />
centre of the original letter –<br />
such was Maude’s mana.<br />
It seemed that maybe this<br />
storm in the Royal Doulton<br />
teacup might be over. Until<br />
the zealous Kate and Ada<br />
double-downed on their original<br />
assertions in a second letter that<br />
appeared in the paper a couple of<br />
days later.<br />
“We have no wish to enter<br />
upon a controversy with Miss<br />
Maude whose “amour propre”<br />
[self esteem] as professional<br />
nurse seems to have been<br />
wounded,” they wrote.<br />
“Our object in writing to you<br />
was to obtain healthy conditions<br />
for the children.”<br />
They also challenged Maude’s<br />
medical assessment with the<br />
contrary view of an unnamed<br />
“medical man” they consulted.<br />
They also had a wee dig at<br />
Maude’s assertion that the two<br />
hadn’t actually talked to the<br />
woman concerned.<br />
“Miss Maude endeavours to<br />
throw doubt on our statement<br />
that we called at the cottage . . .<br />
we are sorry she should have so<br />
poor an opinion of our veracity.”<br />
The letters to the editor page – a<br />
slower, and only slightly more<br />
genteel 19th-century version<br />
of Facebook – drew further<br />
comment from readers keen<br />
to wade in. One ‘troll’ signing<br />
themselves as ‘A Rank Outsider’,<br />
for example, suggested “a little<br />
closer inquiry and a glance at<br />
a medical dictionary [by Mrs<br />
Sheppard and Mrs Wells] might<br />
have saved a certain poor sufferer<br />
a heartache instead of adding to<br />
her suffering.”<br />
And there the matter appears<br />
to have landed – a brief though<br />
very public spat between two of<br />
colonial New Zealand’s foremost<br />
female movers and shakers. The<br />
clash is revealing, Osborne said.<br />
“The debate illustrates the<br />
very different approaches taken<br />
by these women to the pressing<br />
social issues of the day – in this<br />
case healthcare,” she says.<br />
“Both were on the same ‘side’<br />
and shared common values. Kate<br />
Sheppard and Nurse Maude were<br />
both strong Christians with a<br />
very solid social conscience and<br />
sense of duty to the community,<br />
the poor and the welfare of<br />
women in particular. The fact<br />
that their different approaches<br />
appear to have put them at<br />
loggerheads in this situation is<br />
fascinating.”<br />
Politically astute Sheppard<br />
– the reformer and advocate<br />
– was interested in changing<br />
institutional structures that<br />
kept women and their families<br />
poor and powerless. Nurse<br />
Maude’s approach was to roll up<br />
her sleeves and help. Sheppard<br />
affected lasting institutional<br />
change by skilfully building up<br />
networks of influence around<br />
the country and the world.<br />
Maude crammed every waking<br />
hour with hands-on service<br />
to the poor and dispossessed,<br />
fuelled by compassion and bacon<br />
sandwiches, and in her latter<br />
years terrorising motorists in a<br />
donated car with her somewhat<br />
loose interpretation of the road<br />
code as she went about her<br />
rounds.<br />
“The two women epitomised<br />
policy v practical help; strategy<br />
versus sympathy. Both were<br />
reformers in their different ways<br />
and both left a lasting legacy,”<br />
says Osborne.<br />
When Sheppard died in 1934,<br />
the Christchurch Times wrote:<br />
“A great woman has gone, whose<br />
name will remain an inspiration<br />
to the daughters of New Zealand<br />
while our history endures.”<br />
A year later, almost to the<br />
day, Maude passed away. Loved<br />
by countless patients and their<br />
families, hundreds of mourners<br />
lined the streets as her funeral<br />
procession passed by.<br />
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