About the Nurse Pine Medal Project

This website is devoted to the Duty and Honor of Nurse Catherine Pine, and to the meticulous and painstaking research of Historian Elizabeth Crawford, who in those pre-internet days, engaged in the intense and solitary labor of scholarship, dug up Nurse Pine's will, read it and reported on it, without which the contents herein would not be possible. Elizabeth Crawford also helped save the website and other materials from several errors and omissions. Any remaining errors/omissions are those of the website's author, Hope Elizabeth May. She kindly requests that you contact her, if you should discover any issues.

Thanks to the loving research of British Historian Elizabeth Crawford, we know that Nurse Pine bequeathed her medal upon her death in 1941 to be used in the teaching of nursing history. You can read Nurse Pine's Last Will and Testament here. While the medal was delivered to its intended destination in 1941, namely, the History Section of the British College of Nurses, it eventually was lost, as discovered by Elizabeth Crawford,and described in her 2016 blog post titled "The Mystery of Nurse Pine's Medal." The medal has now been found. An encumbered object, possession of the medal comes with a duty to tell its story. This website was created to do just that.

Click the link below for the nitty-gritty about the project

In 2021, after reading Elizabeth Crawford's 2016 Blog Post, Dr. Hope Elizabeth May realized that she had seen Nurse Pine's medal in a 1990 newspaper article describing that it was coming up for auction. At the time, May was researching, for the purposes of re-creating, the "Medals for Valour" or "Hunger Strike Medals" that were given by the WSPU to women who engaged in hunger strikes, some of whom were forcibly fed. For more on the medals recreated by Dr. May, click here.

With the lead provided by the 1990 auction, May conducted further research, from which she learned that the medal was sold at auction in 2008 by the London Auction House Morton & Eden for 3400 pounds (about $4300 in 2024, and $5400 in 1990).

May communicated her discovery to Elizabeth Crawford on December 28, 2021.

On January 5, 2022, May communicated with James Morton of Morton & Eden. James Morton confirmed that he remembered the sale of Nurse Pine's medal, and recalled both the vendor (consignor) and buyer of the medal. He agreed to forward "To the buyer" and "To the vendor" letters on May's behalf to the respective parties. He also communicated that the buyer was a male in the United States.

On January 6, 2022, May drafted and sent to James Morton "to the buyer" and "to the vendor" letters which you can read here. Having no response after a month, May reached out to James Morton again on February 6, 2022. Still, no response.

On March 22, 2023, in honor of Women's History Month, Dr. Hope Elizabeth May gave a talk about the philosophical and legal significance of Nurse Pine's medal at Central Michigan University titled "Appearance and Disappearance: What a Suffragette's Last Will and Testament Can Teach Us About Posthumous Harm," sponsored by Central Michigan University's Department of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religion. The talk was packed, and there was a lively discussion among American students and faculty about the fate of the medal and its philosophical significance. One of audience members, a male pre-med student, went on to give a presentation about Nurse Pine and her medal in one of his classes.

On January 11, 2024, Crawford wrote to May informing her of the upcoming auction of Pine's medal in the United States.
In an attempt to form a legal argument to stop the auction of the medal, from January 2024 - March 2024, Crawford and May engaged in archival research at the UK National Archives about the dissolution of The British College of Nurses (BCN) in 1956, The archives did not reveal a compelling legal argument, but rather confusion and the failure of the BCN to follow their own bylaws as it was shutting down.
In March and April 2024, Elizabeth contacted several relevant institutions in the UK that have a connection to nursing history, hoping to find support for the purchase of the medal. She was unsuccessful as none of these institutions had the funding for such purchases.
In April 2024, Dr. Hope Elizabeth May, keenly feeling the duty to do so, acquired the medal at auction. Realizing that the medal is "encumbered" with Pine's intent, Dr. May is mere steward of the medal. In her view, the medal imposes an epistemological burden - the obligation to use it to educate others about the its contents and related issues for medical ethics and several pertinent legal questions.
The creation of this website and associated content such as videos is one of the ways which May is discharging her burden. All materials were made with love after May received the medal on May 7, 2024, ironically Nurse Pine's 160th birthday. As May made created the content that you find here, she would glance at the precious object on her desk, and read relevant entries in Elizabeth Crawford's "The Woman's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide: 1866-1928" as well as relevant sections of June Purvis' biography of Emmeline Pankhurst titled "Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography." "The discharge of the burden is rather a delight", says May.