By Rev. Lyndan Syiem
On Monday, 8th August, 2022, the Honourable Chief Minister of Meghalaya, Mr. Conrad Sangma, inaugurated the College of Nursing at the premises of the Dr. H. Gordon Roberts Hospital at Jaiaw, Shillong. The inauguration of this BSc nursing institute was attended by many public representatives, church leaders, women’s fellowship leaders and senior hospital staff. Exactly 100 years ago, the School of Nursing was opened under the pioneering leadership of Margaret Elizabeth Buckley at the then Welsh Mission Hospital. It was a quiet beginning, in contrast to the hospital’s grand inauguration by the Governor of Assam, Sir William Marris, on 25 March, 1922. The founder, Dr. H. Gordon Roberts, realized that they needed to train their own nurses, hence he started the nursing school.
This article is a sequel to two recent articles in the Shillong Times on Dr. Hugh Gordon Roberts and Dr. Robert Arthur Hughes, whose names are synonymous with the Welsh Mission Hospital at Jaiaw. These surgeons however could never have made such an impact on healthcare in undivided Assam without the support of two remarkable women who were the first matrons of the hospital: Margaret Elizabeth Buckley (1887-1941) and Amy Katherine Bullock (1889-1986). Their importance is not only medical but also sociological: they influenced generations of Khasi girls into entering the nursing profession, they set high standards of nursing care and also modelled impeccable personal conduct and carriage for nurses.
Margaret Elizabeth Buckley was born on 8 February 1887 at Adfa, Montgomeryshire in Wales. Her parents shifted to Cwmparc in the famed Rhondda Valley but Margaret was for the most part brought up by her grandparents at Montgomeryshire, being greatly influenced by her grandfather, a church elder at Gerizim Presbyterian Chapel. After finishing school, she trained as a nurse at Liverpool and gained valuable experience as a district nurse in Pontardawe. She applied and was accepted for missionary service to India.
Margaret Buckley arrived at Shillong in 1919 and briefly served at the Civil Hospital. When the Welsh Mission Hospital opened in 1922, she joined as the hospital’s first matron and also helped establish the school to train nurses from among the Khasis and Lushais (as the Mizos were then known). In a strange turn of events, Margaret was diagnosed with appendicitis and became the hospital’s first surgical case! Her treatment and subsequent recovery served as a real-life example to the trainee nurses, most of whom had never seen or even heard of a surgical operation.
According to reports, most were village girls, about 16-20 years old, with elementary schooling and many superstitions. The school’s curriculum was hygiene and basic nursing skills. Miss Buckley taught by example –washing the floor of the wards, filling mattresses with pine needles and personally attending to patients’ toilet needs. Many of the trainees had tuberculosis and some died of the disease, others contracted typhoid and had to be sent home to recover. There were 35-40 nursing students, an average of 110-120 in-patients, plus 20 beds in the maternity ward. Miss Buckley was physically and mentally exhausted but received help from a Nurse Hopkins (who stayed only one year) and Katie Roberts, wife of Dr. Gordon Roberts.
Due to ill-health, Margaret went on furlough in 1925. When she returned however, things had changed, especially after the arrival of the better-trained Amy Catherine Bullock in 1929. Historical records tell of disagreements between the strong-willed Miss Buckley and the meticulous Dr. Roberts over the curriculum and training of nurses. Eventually, she volunteered to move to Jowai in 1934. After the departure of Dr. Edward Williams from Jowai in 1925, there was no resident doctor but only visiting doctors from Shillong. The old dispensary had no electricity, no piped water, no drainage system. This was exactly the kind of challenge that Miss Buckley’s independent spirit relished.
She began training local girls as nurses and midwives, and raised funds and clothes from family and friends in Wales. Her warm, gregarious personality attracted many patients and revived the dispensary, raising ambitions for a full-fledged hospital at Jowai. However, lack of funds and World War II postponed those ambitions till 1953. While she conscientiously cared for patients, Margaret Buckley was less careful of her own health and contracted dysentery, typhoid and malaria. On Dr. Roberts’ and Dr. Hughes’ advice, she went to Wales in 1940 for rest and further treatment. Sadly, her desire to return to Jowai remained unfulfilled as she died on 13 January, 1941 at her sister’s home at Ystrad Rhondda, Wales.
Her successor, Amy Katherine Bullock, initially had no plans to serve as a missionary nurse. Actually, she came to India in 1920 just to escort a small child to its parents at Calcutta; this extended to a lengthy tour of Darjeeling and Shillong, where she contracted typhoid. She was treated by Dr. Gordon Roberts and Margaret Buckley at the newly-opened Welsh Mission Hospital. Amy was so impressed by the hospital’s work that she decided to study nursing and to return to serve in the hospital.
After training at King’s College Hospital in London, followed by a course in midwifery, Amy Bullock was accepted by the Mission Board and joined the Welsh Mission Hospital as a nurse in January 1928. When Miss Buckley moved to Jowai, Miss Bullock became the matron in 1934. She provided efficient leadership and the colonial British government awarded her the Kaiser-i-Hind silver medal in 1945, which Margaret Buckley had also received in 1923. Under her guidance, the government passed the Assam Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Registration Act. Unlike her predecessor, Amy Bullock possessed tact and diplomacy.
In 1947, the Government of India appointed her as Nursing Supervisor of Assam, where she served until retiring in January 1961 at the age of 71. During those 14 years, she travelled across the entire Assam, visiting all 64 hospitals (at the time of her retirement), including those in interior areas, by road, rail, air and on foot. She would typically visit them twice a year, inspecting the nurses’ quarters and the training facilities. She also conducted examinations for state certification twice a year.
In recognition of her dedicated service, Amy Bullock was awarded the International Red Cross Society’s Florence Nightingale Medal in 1951. Ten years later, Queen Elizabeth II on a state visit to India, awarded her the MBE at Calcutta. Despite her busy schedule as Matron, Principal and later as Nursing Supervisor, she faithfully attended the Jaiaw Presbyterian Church. Interestingly, when the Anglican (now CNI) All Saints’ Cathedral in Shillong built their Sunday School block in 1960, they invited Amy Bullock to lay the foundation stone. Post-retirement, she settled at Newlands, Malvern, England, where she died on 19 November, 1986 at the age of 97.
Margaret Buckley and Amy Bullock never married. It was then unwritten policy that married women couldn’t continue in ‘full-time’ service but resigned and followed their husband to his posting. This was the case with Ann Beatrice ‘Nancy’ Hughes (nee Wright), wife of Dr. R.A. Hughes, Menna Philips (nee Jones), wife of Rev. T.B. Philips, and Doris Blodwen Crockett (nee Jones), wife of Rev. T.A. Crockett, who were all trained nurses. To their credit, Buckley and Bullock ensured that this policy didn’t extend to Khasi nurses, but rather made provision for their maternity leave and delivery of babies at the hospital.
There were many other nurses of the Welsh Mission as well of other organizations who had all contributed to early healthcare in the Khasi Jaiñtia Hills. However, it was Margaret Buckley and Amy Bullock, who pioneered nursing training in Assam and shaped the public perception of nursing among the Khasis.