It seems strange that it was so long after a great reformation had been wrought in the management of our prisons that any one was found to lift up a voice in behalf of the much enduring inmates of our workhouses.  There seemed to be no one who could spare a thought for the thousands of sick and poor in these institutions.  But it was the old story of “out of sight, out of mind,” for if only the evil had been apparent our English nation with its love of justice would have seen it righted long before.  Workhouses were to be found all over the land, yet the public seemed not at all curious, much less interested, in the question whether they were properly managed or not.  The guardians were often ignorant men, and were very slow to admit visitors, perhaps from a foreshadowing suspicion of the exposure which was in store for them, and the consequent necessity and expense of change, so that we need not wonder that the opposition which was called forth when first the evils of the workhouse system were exposed was tremendous, and that the task of awakening real interest seemed well nigh hopeless.

In the Liverpool Workhouse the state of things was no worse than in many others, and in many respects it was not so bad.  There was a good committee, and therefore there was nothing like the wholesale starvation and cruelty which existed in too many other workhouses There was also some measure of thoughtful care for the sick ones, for Agnes Jones in a letter written after her first visit, says:—­“There seemed care for the patients too; a few plants and flowers, Illustrated News pictures on the walls, and a ‘silent comforter’ in each ward, not the utterly desolate look one often meets in such places.”  Still, there were no trained nurses, and it was impossible for any committee, however zealous, to counteract all the evils of pauper nursing.  The need for reform was great, and happily for Liverpool and for the country at large, there were not only eyes to see the need, but a mind which had grasped the only solution of the difficulty, and a large and sympathetic heart which prompted the hand to open wide the purse to accomplish it, for Mr. William Rathbone, ever foremost in all schemes for ameliorating the condition of the poor and needy, had long been alive to the necessity of substituting for pauper nurses trained paid ones.  He it was who not only suggested the change, but offered himself to bear the whole expense of the scheme for three years, feeling assured that by that time the guardians would be so convinced of its practical good that they would adopt it permanently.

Having obtained the committee’s consent to the trial of his plan, Mr. Rathbone offered the post of lady superintendent to Agnes Jones, then at the Great Northern Hospital in London.  After consultation with Miss Nightingale and Mrs. Wardroper, the Lady Superintendent of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and receiving their approval and also the promise of twelve Nightingale nurses from St. Thomas’s for her