Designated in 2024 as an Exceptional Person.
Nominator: Heidi Coombs
At a pivotal period in the development of the nursing profession and modern hospitals, Mary Meager Southcott (1862-1943) rose to the great task of establishing colonial Newfoundland’s first nursing school. She improved standards of nursing, laid the groundwork for the professionalization of the occupation, and made it a viable career for Newfoundland women. And she provided decades of leadership and support for public health and welfare organizations and causes.
In March of 1903, Mary Southcott started in the new, government-appointed role of Superintendent of Nursing at the St. John’s General Hospital on Forest Road, where she was to establish a school of nursing. Nurses were housed in the General Hospital until 1912, when Southcott’s vision of the new, adjoining King Edward VII Home for Nurses was opened and occupied. And Southcott fought for improvements to the pay and working conditions of nurses. In 1913, Southcott helped organize the Graduate Nurses’ Association of Newfoundland, and was elected its president. The inaugural meeting happened in her sitting room, and the original membership included around 30 graduates from the General Hospital School of Nursing.
In support of women’s suffrage, Southcott lectured on the history of nursing and its struggle for professional acceptance. She was a member of the Women’s Franchise League, which secured Newfoundland women’s right to vote in 1925. In 1921, Southcott was appointed Vice President of the Newfoundland Midwifery Board, helping set policies for nursing midwives. She supported the Newfoundland Outport Nursing and Industrial Association (NONIA), which was formed to raise money towards the salaries of public health nurses through the sale of knit goods. From its formation in 1921 to 1934, Southcott served as president of the Child Welfare Association, an important charitable organization that grew out of the First World War-time Women’s Patriotic Association.
Mary Southcott died of a stroke on October 29, 1943, and was buried at the Anglican Cemetery on Forest Road, not far from the General Hospital and the School of Nursing that she founded.
LEARN MORE > Commemorations Research Paper – Mary Meager Southcott, by Lara Maynard
LINKS
Photograph of Mary Southcott, n.d. (Photo from the MUN DAI).
Photograph of Mary Southcott with the Waterford Hall Staff n.d. (Newfoundland Quarterly 107(2) Fall 2014).
Photograph of the General Hospital in St. John’s between 1925 and 1935 (Maritime History Archives).
Mary Southcott outside the General Hospital, n.d. (MUN DAI).
Photograph of 28 Monkstown Road in the 1990s, the location of Southcott’s Private Hospital (Maritime History Archives).
Photograph of Mary Southcott with children, n.d. (MUN DAI).
