Godfrey, Emily

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0102 MS 380758
Held at	: School of Oriental and African Studies   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.soas.ac.uk/Archives/home.html ›
Full title	: Godfrey, Emily
Date(s)	: 1919-1979
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1 file
Name of creator(s)	: Godfrey | Emily | 1884-1978 | medical missionary

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born in Loftus, Cleveland, 1884; her family were Primitive Methodists; the family lived at Horwich, Lancashire, 1886-1889; subsequently brought up in Middlesbrough; worked in Scarborough as a children's nurse; a clerk at Stockton Forge, Stockton-on-Tees; trained as a nurse at York County Hospital, 1913; served in military hospitals during World War One (1914-1918); awarded the Royal Red Cross medal; worked at the Welsh Hospital, Netley, Southampton; accepted by the the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (PMMS, succeeded after 1932 by the Methodist Missionary Society), 1919; trained at Kingsmead Missionary Training College, 1920; a pioneering nurse in eastern Nigeria, 1921-1944; first matron at the Methodist Hospital, Ama Achara; temporary service in South Africa to establish a training hospital in Thaba Nchu, South Africa, 1946-1949; returned to Middlesborough; unmarried; died, 1978. For further information see her nephew Frank Godfrey's biography, Emily: the Relentless Nurse (Teamprint, Loughborough [1999]).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers, 1919-1979, of and relating to Emily Godfrey, comprising a record of her missionary work and biographical information, 1921-1978; copy certificate as founder member of the Royal College of Nursing, undated; her testimony when applying to be a missionary, 1919, and typescript copy; letters and papers, 1919-1921, relating to her appointment by the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (PMMS); PMMS congratulations on receiving the Royal Red Cross medal for war work, undated; printed papers relating to Methodist activities, mainly in England, some relating to addresses by Emily Godfrey, 1921-1937; printed and typescript reports on her work in Nigeria, 1922-[1934]; letters received from various correspondents, 1922-1954, the subjects including her missionary work and retirement (1944); letters, 1942-1946, from German missionaries who were interned in Nigeria and England during World War Two; papers relating to pensions, 1937-1964; leaflet appealing for funds for the Methodist Hospital, Ama Achara, Nigeria, c1976; typescript accounts by Emily Godfrey of her work in Nigeria, one made from a tape recording (since lost), undated; printed and typescript items on her death, including obituaries and a letter of condolence, 1978-1979.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.

Finding aids:

Collection level description.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited in 2001.

Allied Materials

Related material:

SOAS holds a copy of Frank Godfrey's Emily: the Relentless Nurse (Ref: MMSL AE NI 386) as well as the records of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (Ref: MMS/PMMS).

The Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, Edinburgh, holds Emily Godfrey's photographs, negatives and lantern slides of mission work in Nigeria.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Mar 2002, revised Aug 2002