‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’: Rural realities, professional ideals, and the forgotten history of cottage nursing c. 1880–1939

Abstract This paper examines the rise and fall of cottage nursing, a controversial approach to rural healthcare that was championed across the United Kingdom from the 1880s to the interwar period. Defying the strategies being used to professionalise nursing in urban centres, cottage nursing supporters argued that nurses for the rural poor should be recruited from the lowest social classes, given only the briefest training, and prepared to do both nursing and menial domestic work. Their critics espoused the noble ideal of providing the rural poor with only the best-trained lady district nurses from the apparent moral high ground, persuasively arguing that the ‘little knowledge’ given to cottage nurses was a ‘dangerous thing’ – both for patients and for the nursing profession. And yet, cottage nursing supporters boldly challenged this position, arguing that noble ideals and excellent standards could simultaneously be pursued on behalf of rural patients and at their expense.