Career
In 1886, when Elizabeth Neill was thirty years old, she and her four year- old boy went to live with Dr. Neill in Australia because he had set up a successful practice there. Two years later, Dr. Neill died, and Elizabeth Neill was forced to turn to journalism to make a living. She was a sub-editor of the Boomerang and a freelance journalist for the Brisbane Daily Telegraph and the Courier. A year later she was appointed by the Queensland Government to a Royal Commission on working conditions for shop and factory workers. Combined with her work as a journalist, her knowledge of the problems associated with giving charitable aid led to her appointment in 1893 as the first female factory inspector in New Zealand. She was then also given a job as assistant inspector in the department in charge of hospitals, asylums, and charitable aid. As only the third person working in that department, Elizabeth had a huge workload and a lot of stress. However, it provided the opportunity for her to greatly influence that area of health care practice. Once another doctor, Frank Hay, was able to take over that position, however, Elizabeth Neill excitedly devoted herself to a project that would provide suitable nursing service for all of New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: Elizabeth Grace Neill
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)