The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is a century old professional association and trade union for nurses which holds a Royal Charter. The RCN represents nurses and nursing in the UK and has over 450,000 members. The archives of the organization contain both business records relating to the professional development of nursing during the 20th and 21st centuries and personal collections donated by nurses. Over 900 personal collections contain papers such as certificates, diaries, study notes, research, photographs, letters and other small items. Since the 1980s we have also recorded interviews with over 700 nurses and now have a collection spanning all of the UK. Online registers of nurses (1922-1968) from our collections can be found on the Ancestry website. You can also see samples of digital collections online at https://rcn.access.preservica.com/archive/ [1] including those used in a recent First World War project https://www.rcn.org.uk/servicescrapbooks [2].
For more information about our collections and access please see the RCN Library and Archives webpages. Our catalogue is available through a link on this webpage https://www.rcn.org.uk/library/archives [3].