A Favourite of Florence Nightingale

In one of the postcards of the medical staff at Beaufort Hospital there is an older matron. Who was she?

In Stone and Wells’ book on the history of the Great War (1) a matron called A C Gibson is mentioned in just one line. Using this information John Penny, a historian and volunteer at the Museum, uncovered the following story using Ancestry.com and Scottish archives online.

Matron Anne Campbell Gibson S.R.N. was a woman of considerable experience. As a Nightingale nurse she had run hospitals of a similar size to Beaufort, and retired in 1912. In 1915, aged 65, she was brought out of retirement by the War Office to be Matron at Beaufort War Hospital until May 1916 when she handed over to Kate Underwood. Gibson was well known in the nursing world for being an excellent organizer and a forceful speaker and writer on poor-law nursing. She went on to serve on the Council of the College of Nursing.

See John Penny’s findings here (PDF, 227KB).

(1) Stone, G.F. and Wells, C. eds., 1920. Bristol and the Great War 1914-1919. Bristol: J.W. Arrowsmith.