Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/268

252 A Short History of Nursing State Society for the Registration of Nurses was formed to frame and support a registration act in Parliament. Its bill was introduced in 1904, and was the subject of lengthy hearings before a Select Committee of the House of Commons. The Select Committee made a favourable report, but the bill did not reach its third reading. In 1908 another attempt was made, and a similar bill was favourably received in the House of Lords, but did not reach the House of Commons. The registration group was then reinforced by the Royal British Nurses' Association, and a Central Committee was formed (19 10) which represented by delegation the British Medical Association, the Royal British Nurses' Association, the Matrons' Council of Great Britain and Ireland, the Society for the State Registration of Trained Nurses, the Fever Nurses' Association, the Scottish Nurses' Association, and the Irish Nursing Board, compris- ing altogether no fewer than thirty thousand medi- cal practitioners and nurses. From that time until the war broke out the Central Committee carried on an intensive campaign, in trying to push its own bill, and in successfully overthrowing numer- ous counter efforts of its enemies, which our space is too limited to describe. With the outbreak of the war the Central Com-