Clodagh Finn: If only we had hospital builder Madam Steevens in today's world

The indefatigable Grizelda Steevens managed to get Ireland’s first public hospital up and running in 1733

From a portrait of hospital builder and philanthropist Grizelda Steevens by Michael Mitchell. Picture: By permission of the Trustees of the Edward Worth Library © The Edward Worth Library.

Every time I hear of another delay to the opening of the children’s hospital — the 16th at last count — I wonder what the indefatigable Grizelda Steevens would make of it.

If only that determined and dedicated woman, who managed to get Ireland’s first public hospital up and running in 1733, were around today.

She built a hospital for the “curable poor of the Kingdom” against all the odds, and in a city which spread the rumour that a silk veil concealed her pig’s snout. More on that dark legend later, but first let us roll back the clock to 1710 to see how one woman spearheaded an ambitious building project to give Dublin a pioneering and enduring health-care institution.

The idea of founding a hospital to help the poor came from her twin brother Dr Richard Steevens, but the professor of physic, or medicine, at Trinity College Dublin did not live long enough to put the plan into action.

On the night before he died, in 1710, he changed his will to leave his sister the bulk of his estate, along with an income of some £600 a year. There was, however, a sting in the tail. All was hers as long as she did not marry.

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He also established a trust and asked its five (male) members to build a hospital with whatever remained of his fortune after his sister died.

Grizelda, or Grizel, as she was also known, was 57 years old by then. Her brother had left her the means to live a comfortable (though single) life for the rest of her days, but she had other plans.

While we don’t know what Grizelda thought of the marriage bar, if we might call it that, there is ample evidence of her bold decision to build her brother’s desired hospital herself.

She set aside £100 a year to fund her own living expenses, and invested the rest in a project that was bigger than the one her brother had planned. And more expensive. She would need extra money. When her hopes of securing a royal grant fell through, she set out to raise private funds.

Keen business sense

With exceptional savvy and a keen business sense, she united the great and the good of the capital city in a common purpose — to open a hospital so that the “wounds and distempers” of the poor might be cured.

The ins and outs of how she expanded the trust to bring together politicians, clergymen, doctors, and the city’s leading citizens in 1717 is spelled out in fascinating detail by Elizabethanne Boran, librarian at Edward Worth Library, in a talk you’ll find online.

Her account also gives an eye-opening glimpse into how one woman successfully garnered all her strength to do something that seemed impossible. She assembled a team, raised funds, and set up a framework that allowed for the hospital’s foundations to be laid in 1720.

Then, as now, the hard work of building on those foundations involved a dizzying array of workers — masons, stone cutters, carpenters, plumbers, glaziers, plasterers, and painters.

One interesting nugget contained in surviving records tells us that the rates of pay for a day’s labour ranged between eight and nine pence, slightly lower than the norm of between nine and 10 pence.

Another is that women were involved in building work too. Thomas and Hester Lawless were paid for delivering stones in 1720. An Elizabeth Rayner delivered tarred rope in the same year while a Mary Cook signed a receipt on behalf of Dr Robert Griffith, who disbursed monies for charity.

What is most apparent in all the evidence, though, is this single fact: Grizelda Steevens was in charge.

“The vast majority of the accounts and receipts refer not to Dr Steevens’ Hospital, but to Mistress Steevens’ charity. It was she who was the guiding force who brought it into existence,” Ms Boran explains.

Dr Steevens’ Hospital, which now houses the HSE.

Dublin appreciated her role too. Her name appeared on the main entrance to the hospital while the building itself was known colloquially as Madam Steevens’ Hospital.

When she died on March 18, 1747, some 14 years after the facility opened, the Dublin Journal sang her praises in the most glowing terms. It highlighted her charitable disposition and her pious work, saying she had erected a hospital at her own expense, reserving only a small apartment within it for herself.

And with a flourish, the piece ended with the highest accolade: “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.”

We also know, courtesy of T Percy C Kirkpatrick’s exhaustive history of the hospital, that she wanted to be buried with minimum fuss, and at night.

The surviving bills, though, tell us that her funeral was far more elaborate than she might have liked. There was a hearse with fine plumes, two mourning coaches, a velvet Pall sheet and white ribbon, and seven pairs of white gloves for the pallbearers, to mention a few of the many listed items.

What is not clear in any of the documents is how this esteemed lady of the 18th century fell victim to the rumours that she had the face of a pig.

Like many myths, this one is remarkably tenacious. Here are the bones of the story: Grizelda wore a veil as she travelled, by carriage, along the uneven cobbles of Dublin’s streets to dispense charity.

One night, the veil blew aside to reveal that she had a pig’s snout. The rumour whipped around the city, along with the explanation that her mother had been cursed to give birth to a pig-faced child after she refused to give alms to a beggar.

You’ll find pig-faced women in many other European capitals too; gothic stories to enthral, perhaps, or, much more likely, cautionary tales to warn what happens when women do things outside the norm.

The tellers of these tall tales also claim that Grizelda commissioned Michael Mitchell to paint a portrait of her to disprove the story. The portrait is very real. It still hangs in the reading room of the Edward Worth Library of Dr Steevens’, although the hospital closed in 1987. The building now houses the HSE.

While the painting was completed in her lifetime, it seems the pig myth didn’t start to circulate until after her death.

There’s also a story that Grizelda’s spirit haunted Ward 7 of the hospital when it was still operational. That one holds more force because a nurse, who trained there, once told me she spent many scary night duties on that ward.

If the spirit of Grizelda Steevens is still with us, and I truly hope it is, it should inspire rather than scare.

That’s the hope behind the aspiration to have some kind of fitting public memorial to her in the city. This week, Labour councillor Dermot Lacey said he hoped to bring forward a proposal to Dublin City Council’s commemorations and naming committee to honour Grizelda Steevens.

He was prompted by Lee Dillon, a dedicated champion of women and fan of Grizelda Steevens, who wrote to him making a strong case.

“She was a great Dubliner and Irish woman, who put ego aside and effected meaningful change for the better of her fellow citizens. She’s such an under-recognised, appealing, inspiring hero deserving of recognition,” she said.

She also has an awful lot to teach us about opening hospitals.