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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Lilian Mary Marfell (1876-[1965]) was born in Guildford, Surrey, the daughter of a farmer. She began working as a probationer at the Westminster Hospital in 1901 having previously worked at a cottage hospital, and was promoted to staff nurse in 1903. She left the Hospital prior to 1914. She was also a member of the Royal Pension Fund for Nurses.
The Royal Pension Fund for Nurses was founded in 1887 as the National Pension Fund for Nurses by Henry C Burdett (1847-1920), and based at 8 King Street, Cheapside, London. The chief object of the Fund was to provide nurses with a retirement income or give allowances for nurses who found themselves unable to work through sickness or accident. Burdett used his connections to the Prince and Princess of Wales to secure their patronage for the Fund.
The Fund was based upon the contribution of members, the profits made from investments of these contributions, and a Donation Bonus Fund. The Fund attracted a number of benefactors, with the first donation of £20,000 received from Junius S. Morgan (head of merchant bank J S Morgan and Company, which in 1910 became Morgan, Grenfell and Company). The Fund's administrators solicited further donations and annual subscriptions from both from individual donors and organisations involved in the training and employment of nurses.
An allied organisation, the Morgan Benevolent Fund, was established as a memorial to Junius Morgan. The Morgan Benevolent Fund offered relief to members of the Royal Pension Fund for Nurses who were in distress or unable to keep up their pension contributions as well as annuities for Fund members over 60 who, through no fault of their own, were unable to provide for themselves after the age of 60.
In 1901 Marfell was one of the eighth and ninth thousandth nurses to join the fund and was therefore invited to a reception for the Fund's nurses held by the Fund's president, Queen Alexandra, at Marlborough House.