Anne Cummins Memorial Scholarship

This annual scholarship is for £3,000 towards a study/research project on health related social work.

Applicants should complete the Trust’s scholarship application form and include a proposal of not more than 500 words, setting out the aims, estimated costs, time-scale and intended outcomes/benefits of the research project.

Anne Cummins was one of the earliest hospital almoners – what we would now call a medical social worker. She was appointed to St Thomas’s Hospital in London in 1905. She was able to build up a team of almoners and was Head Almoner on her retirement in 1929. Her reports documented social needs that caused and exacerbated ill health and established innovative services to meet those needs. She was a major force in development of the Association of Hospital Almoners which championed the importance of training. The Association became the Institute of Medical Social Workers in 1964.

The Anne Cummins Memorial Scholarship Fund was established in November 1958 (Charity number 228379) and is managed and administered by the Social Workers’ Educational Trust.