Kenneth Smith

Pioneer male nurse

Kenneth Edgar Smith, nurse: born Usk, Monmouthshire 8 May 1922; matron, Axbridge Infirmary 1966-87; four times married (one daughter); died Bath 6 June 2003.

Kenneth Smith was one of the first men to break the glass ceiling in nursing to become a fully qualified male matron. He spent 21 years as a matron at Axbridge Infirmary in Somerset, and was known to all the nursing staff there as "Father".

His promotion was a long time coming. Smith had been based at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, where the matron made it quite clear that she did not consider nursing a suitable career for men, and certainly would not be recommending him for promotion. To circumvent this, he took a position as a district nurse, travelling on call throughout Somerset to attend to his patients.

As matron at Axbridge, he was on duty in 1973 when a chartered plane carrying local women on their annual shopping trip to Switzerland crashed near Basle killing 108 of the 150 passengers. Smith lost three of his own nurses, and the hospital mortuary was commandeered for the victims' bodies.

Smith had seen harrowing scenes before. As a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps he entered Dachau concentration camp near Munich in 1945, and many years later described what he found:

There were walls of [living] bodies stacked one on top of the other. A lot we could do nothing for, but every one had to be seen.

Kenneth Smith was born in 1922, in Usk, Monmouthshire. His parents ran two clothing stores in the town and he was brought up in a strict Methodist environment. As a small child, he suffered from jaundice and took very little part in sport. He was sent to boarding school near Truro at the age of 10, where he was teased for his Welsh accent. Because of their business, his parents never visited for speech or sports days.

He long held a desire to go into medicine but his father developed a heart condition that forced the family business to close. With money tight, Kenneth Smith had to find work. He became a psychiatric nurse at Abergavenny Mental Hospital, where he was issued with a navy suit, white shirt and black tie. "Add to that a bunch of keys and you looked like a warder in a prison," he said.

Although in a reserved occupation, Smith was keen to see active service and joined No 1 RAMC Depot at Crookham, Hampshire, where he elected to pursue surgical nursing. His first posting was to Alexandria, which "took a bit of getting used to". On exercises his team could be ready to operate within half an hour of setting up camp.

He was attached briefly to the 1st Army in North Africa before returning to England in preparation for the Normandy Landings. He landed in France four days after D-Day, and with his unit made his way through France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany. After Dachau he served for a time in Berlin.

On demobilisation Smith returned to civilian nursing, taking a 12-month ex-servicemen's course at Frenchay Hospital. One December a patient was admitted who had been impaled on a pitchfork. Asked if he wanted anything, the patient replied "whisky", and Smith arranged for a drop to be included in his drip. "He had a wonderful Christmas," noted Smith.

He finally retired from Axbridge in 1987 after more than 50 years in nursing.

Tim Bullamore