Betsi Cadwaladr was born on the 24th of May 1789 in Llanycil, near Bala, Cymru. As is slightly less common today, she was born as one of 16 children to Dafydd Cadwaladr, a Methodist preacher. I have been unable to find her mother’s name, so feel free to comment it if you are aware.
Betsi was from a very working-class background at a time when being a working class woman meant a lifetime of menial work. However, against the odds, Betsi would become synonymous with the Crimean War for her work as a nurse – challenging the other, arguably most famous nurse, the upper-class Florence Nightingale (who is believed to have resented Betsi because of her Welsh, working-class background), on all manner of things relating to the care, cleanliness and supplies within the war hospitals.
Betsi would eventually be posted to a hospital near the front line of Balaclava and she upped the standards within the hospital to such levels that even the frowning Nightingale gave her credit. Upping the standards would become a consistent theme of Betsi’ work and she was clearly ahead of her time.
Betsi Cadwaladr would die in 1860 after a number of health ailments gained from her determined efforts in Crimea.
Today, her name is synonymous not just with the Crimean War but with the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board – the local health board of NHS Wales for North Wales. She remains one of Cymru’s greatest ever women and, undoubtedly, one of its greatest ever people.
For a far more in-depth biography, you can read: Betsi Cadwaladr: A Welsh Nurse in the Crimea by D J Thorp.
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Niklas is the founder, owner, manager, editor, writer, video creator, voice over artist, and so forth, of Welsh Histories. He is passionate about the preservation of Welsh culture; the rejuvenation of the Welsh language and the promotion of Welsh history. Niklas currently resides in Pune, Maharashtra, with his beloved wife.