page_title: Constance Watney
section_title: Missionary work in Uganda
hierarchical_section_title: Constance Watney / Missionary work in Uganda
caption_attribution_description: English: View taken from Maternity Hospital, Mengo Hospital, Kampala 1936
context_page_description: Constance Watney, MBE, COC, SRN, MBCN, was a British born missionary nurse in Uganda.
context_section_description: In 1908 Constance was accepted by the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) and sent out to Kampala, Uganda, where she worked in the Mengo Hospital, under Dr Sir Albert Ruskin Cook. In 1917 Mengo hospital, in addition to its missionary work, served as a base hospital for the fighting in East Africa, and for her share of the very heavy work, "Sister Connie", as she was called, received the MBE in 1918. 
  For nursing an official of the Belgian Government, Sister Connie was awarded the very rare honour of Croix de l’Ordre de la Couronne (Order of the Crown (Seventh Class).
  In May 1921, Watney joined Dr Algernon Stanley Smith (who had been brought up by Constance's maiden aunts, Alice and Emily Watney in South Croydon after the death of his mother when he was only one year old) and Dr Len Sharp at Kabale, southwest Uganda, where they a new beginning was made for missionary work into Ruanda, in Belgian territory.  She helped to start a hospital at a place called Kabira, where she was the first matron, under very difficult conditions and they were able to receive the first patient in June 1922.  The first building had 12 beds but then expanded to 50 when the hospital was officially opened in 1922. In 1923 there were 73 beds for men, 40 for women; in that year they had 705 inpatients and conducted 181 operations.
caption: View taken from Maternity Hospital, Mengo Hospital, Kampala 1936
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