Southern View: June 29, 2023

8
Thursday June 29 2023
Public feud between city’s
two most powerful women
TWO OF the city’s favourite
daughters once went head to
head in a public scrap that was
rather unbecoming of their
status as ‘saints in the making’.
The redoubtable nurse Sibylla
Emily Maude – originator
of what would become New
Zealand’s district nurse
programme and this country’s
answer to Florence Nightingale
– took on women’s suffragist
and mother of the nation,
Kate Sheppard, in a public
disagreement which resonated
in the letters to the editor pages
of the Christchurch Star and the
Lyttelton Times over the last few
days of 1898.
The interaction features in
Judith Devaliant’s book Kate
Sheppard: A Biography.
“The issue concerned an
anonymous woman who had had
the misfortune of contracting
what was clearly a rather nasty
disease,” says Helen Osborne,
property lead for Te Whare
Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard
House.
Kate Sheppard’s Ilam home is
today cared for by Heritage New
Zealand Pouhere Taonga.
“Suffragist Kate Sheppard
and fellow women’s advocate
Ada Wells wrote a letter to the
editor highlighting the plight of
the woman and her family and
describing her condition as ‘a
disease of loathsome form, the
details of which are so revolting
they cannot be here explained’.
The zealous duo petitioned
for the removal of the two sons
of the woman in question so
they could be lodged elsewhere
in healthier surroundings as
the boys were unable to isolate
themselves within the rather
pokey confines of their cottage.
They argued the sons were in
danger of becoming “a fruitful
source of contamination to
those with whom they come in
contact”.
Because the mother’s condition
was a chronic one, the Charitable
Aid Board had advised it had
done all it could reasonably do.
Both Sheppard and Wells asked
people to send money to the
newspaper to help out if they
possibly could, adding “much
could be said of the pitiful life of
the children brought into hourly
contact with hideous disease, but
we refrain”.
“From 1885 all hospitals
were run by Charitable Aid
Boards whose role was partly
to assess patients to determine
whether they could pay for their
treatment. People assessed as
‘paupers’ were treated for free,”
says Osborne.
“Boards and some members
of the public were quick to
expose people they believed
were ripping off the system. The
way patients were perceived by
the Charitable Aid Boards was
very important. Sensitivities
CONTRIBUTIONS: Sibylla Maude started what would become New Zealand’s district nurse programme, while Kate
Sheppard was the leader of the women’s suffrage movement.
about communicable diseases,
including venereal disease, made
public health and fair access
to treatment a hot issue that
left many women particularly
vulnerable.”
The Lyttelton Times started to
receive donations as a result of
the letter, and before long, it also
received another contribution
from a reader – a letter from
Maude, who had a few things to
say about the original Sheppard/
Wells letter. And when Maude
said something, people had a
tendency to sit up and listen.
Maude announced in her letter
that she knew the woman in
question because – even though
the patient wasn’t identified by
Sheppard and Wells – it was
obvious who they were referring
to. She also said the woman had
been under her personal care for
years.
And then she got stuck in:
“The unfortunate sufferer is
much distressed at the publicity
now sought to be given, first
without her knowledge or
consent, and secondly because
of the incorrect and alarming
statements circulated as to the
alleged contagious nature of her
complaint,” she wrote, adding
that the patient hadn’t actually
talked to anyone about her
plight, not least Sheppard and
Wells.
“She is not ‘lying prostrated
from a disease of loathsome
form’. She is able to walk about,
enjoy fresh air, and I have
taken her out and sent her for
a drive, which I should be very
unlikely to do if her condition
were ‘a fruitful source of
contamination’.”
Maude also advised that
the patient had refused any
additional help beyond what she
“receives already from private
friends and the Charitable Aid
Board” and that her sons were all
healthy and in no danger from
infection.
The letter was followed by a
note from the editor advising
that donations would be
returned to readers should it be
found that the woman and her
three sons were the ones at the
centre of the original letter –
such was Maude’s mana.
It seemed that maybe this
storm in the Royal Doulton
teacup might be over. Until
the zealous Kate and Ada
double-downed on their original
assertions in a second letter that
appeared in the paper a couple of
days later.
“We have no wish to enter
upon a controversy with Miss
Maude whose “amour propre”
[self esteem] as professional
nurse seems to have been
wounded,” they wrote.
“Our object in writing to you
was to obtain healthy conditions
for the children.”
They also challenged Maude’s
medical assessment with the
contrary view of an unnamed
“medical man” they consulted.
They also had a wee dig at
Maude’s assertion that the two
hadn’t actually talked to the
woman concerned.
“Miss Maude endeavours to
throw doubt on our statement
that we called at the cottage . . .
we are sorry she should have so
poor an opinion of our veracity.”
The letters to the editor page – a
slower, and only slightly more
genteel 19th-century version
of Facebook – drew further
comment from readers keen
to wade in. One ‘troll’ signing
themselves as ‘A Rank Outsider’,
for example, suggested “a little
closer inquiry and a glance
at a medical dictionary [by
Mrs Sheppard and Mrs Wells]
might have saved a certain poor
sufferer a heartache instead of
adding to her suffering.”
And there the matter appears
to have landed – a brief though
very public spat between two of
colonial New Zealand’s foremost
female movers and shakers. The
clash is revealing, Osborne said.
“The debate illustrates the
very different approaches taken
by these women to the pressing
social issues of the day – in this
case healthcare,” she says.
“Both were on the same ‘side’
and shared common values. Kate
Sheppard and Nurse Maude were
both strong Christians with a
very solid social conscience and
sense of duty to the community,
the poor and the welfare of
women in particular. The fact
that their different approaches
appear to have put them at
loggerheads in this situation is
fascinating.”
Politically astute Sheppard
– the reformer and advocate
– was interested in changing
institutional structures that kept
women and their families poor
and powerless.
Maude’s approach was to
roll up her sleeves and help.
Sheppard affected lasting
institutional change by
skilfully building up networks
of influence around the
country and the world. Maude
crammed every waking hour
with hands-on service to the
poor and dispossessed, fuelled
by compassion and bacon
sandwiches, and in her latter
years terrorising motorists in a
donated car with her somewhat
loose interpretation of the road
code as she went about her
rounds.
“The two women epitomised
policy v practical help; strategy
versus sympathy. Both were
reformers in their different ways
and both left a lasting legacy,”
says Osborne.
When Sheppard died in 1934,
the Christchurch Times wrote:
“A great woman has gone, whose
name will remain an inspiration
to the daughters of New Zealand
while our history endures.”
A year later, almost to the
day, Maude passed away. Loved
by countless patients and their
families, hundreds of mourners
lined the streets as her funeral
procession passed by.