THE great-nephew of Scottish fevers nurse Louisa Jordan has defended the use of her name for Glasgow’s Covid-19 emergency hospital and told how he found out ‘by chance’ about the dedication.
Murray Crone, who grew up in the city’s West End but now lives in Fife, said there was a parallel between the nurses who lost their lives after treating First World War soldiers battling deadly typhus in Serbia, and NHS staff risking their own health in coronavirus wards.
A row erupted after former Labour MP Douglas Alexander suggested that the £43million hospital, which is now open for admissions, should be named Glasgow’s Nightingale after its London counterpart.
Louisa signed up to join the Scottish Women’s Hospitals on December 1, 1914 and worked at the 1st Serbian unit in Kraguievac, around 100 miles south of Belgrade.
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She died of Typhus on March 6, 1915, age just 36, after caring for other doctors and nurses battling the disease.
Murray said: “A member of my family had been looking at general information online about coronavirus and noticed it (the hospital dedication).
“I do agree with the name. I think it has been chosen to represent the Scottish Women’s Hospital doing all that work during the First World War.
“Not only were they helping troops but they were having to look after the general public.
“It was an epidemic, it didn’t just affect soldiers. Everyone in the towns was affected.
“I found a book that has some information about Louisa that was called ‘In the Service of Life’ which I think is a great motto for anyone involved in the health profession.
“There is a bit in there about her which shows just what an experienced person she was.
“Someone is quoted saying ‘I wish we could multiply Sister Jordan by a hundred or more and we could nurse the entire town.
“She died from typhus looking after some of her own fellow workers. The nurses and doctors caught the illness and had to look after themselves.
“It was after that, that she succumbed to it.”
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Louisa was born on July 1878, on Gairbraid Street in Maryhill and was one of 11 children, although three died in infancy.
She was the sister of Murray’s granny Helen, who died when he was around five years old and while he was aware of her aid efforts growing up it wasn’t until a few years ago that he learned the full extent of her heroism.
He said: “I was as shocked as anyone else to find out about her.
“ I had been doing a lot of family research and I looked into her and found out more about the Scottish Women’s Hospital, which she was part of.
“Someone sent me a link and I thought, it can’t be the same Louisa Jordan but I then I saw a photograph and it was.
“She left in December 1914 and they were in Serbia and then this Typhus epidemic happened she was put in charge of one of the hospitals in a town not far from Belgrave.
“The photograph that I’ve seen in some of the news articles, she’s quite young there but I found another, purely by accident.
“There is an archive at the Royal College of Surgeons where they have copies of lantern slides which were used in talks around the UK to drum up support for the war effort.
“It is of the first group of nurses setting off from Southampton in December 1914 and I downloaded this and by coincidence she was standing in front of the group.
“She’s 36 there and bit older and she looks like she could take on anything.”
Murray’s sister followed in her great aunt’s footsteps to become a children’s nurse, beginning her career in Glasgow but is now retired, while he works in the oil industry.
He said: “My parents went in the early 1970s on a road trip to Greece and Yugoslavia to visit her grave.
“She’s buried in one of those Commonwealth war graves, along with her fellow nurses who lost their lives.
“I was only four of five when my grandmother died but I suspect that my father made that pilgrimage on her behalf.
“I’m sure she would have wanted to visit that grave.”
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