Catalogue description Papers of Henry Bonham Carter

Henry Bonham Carter was first cousin to Florence Nightingale and secretary of the Nightingale Fund Council from 1862 to 1914. These papers were given to the Nightingale School in or before 1955 by members of his family. The majority have been retained in their original bundles. Most bundles include some note of their contents, the first of which may have been made by Henry Bonham Carter, possibly when he handed over the secretaryship to his son, Walter Bonham Carter, in 1914. The papers were later sorted and weeded by his daughter, Joanna Bonham Carter, with the help of Miss Elizabeth Bosanquet between 1932 and 1936. They added lists of contents to the bundles, but seem to have kept many of the original bundles intact, though they weeded and combined the annual bundles of correspondence for 1870 to 1910. For example, they weeded his bundles of correspondence for 1870-1879 and combined them into one bundle, Packet 13 (H01/ST/NC18/13). The papers were catalogued and numbered in 1963 by Miss E.M.McInnes, Archivist to St Thomas' Hospital, who attached additional lists of contents to each bundle. Her catalogue remained available in manuscript only for thirty years.

The thirty-three packets of papers include Henry Bonham Carter's more routine correspondence, usually kept in annual bundles, concerning the running of the Nightingale School, the allocation of trained nurses to suitable hospitals, applications from prospective nurses, enquiries from hospitals seeking trained nurses and requests for help from clergymen and others seeking district nurses or midwives for their parishes. There are also separate bundles of correspondence relating to such topics as accommodation for the Nightingale Probationers in the new St Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth and the introduction of trained female nurses to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. The correspondence also deals with the other work of the Nightingale Fund Council in founding a midwifery school at King's College Hospital, establishing training schools for nurses in workhouse infirmaries, and in training district nurses for the Metropolitan and National Nursing Association for providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor. The papers also reflect Henry Bonham Carter's increasing involvement in the affairs of St Thomas' Hospital as a governor from 1872, as a member of the Grand Committee, an Almoner, and from 1877 as a member of the newly formed House Committee.

A second smaller collection of Henry Bonham Carter's papers as Secretary of the Nightingale Fund was deposited in the Greater London Record Office in 1975 by the Nightingale Fund Council (ref. A/NFC 61-107). This includes some papers inherited from his predecessors as secretary, Samuel Smith, Samuel Carter Hall, and Arthur Hugh Clough. Although this collection has a much greater concentration of material relating to affairs of the Nightingale Fund Council, there is considerable overlap between the two collections. A combined index to correspondents and subjects has been prepared (H01/ST/NC/APPENDIX/003).

This collection of papers contains letters from Florence Nightingale to Henry Bonham Carter, mostly relating to nursing in military hospitals. Other of her letters to her cousin, many concerning the Nightingale School at St Thomas' Hospital, have been included in the "Nightingale Correspondence" ref.H01/ST/NC1, listed in detail in H01/ST/NC/APPENDIX/001. The Nightingale Papers in the British Library also contain correspondence between Henry Bonham Carter and Florence Nightingale.