Theodora Turner, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was a British nurse and hospital matron.
Education
She attended the Godolphin School, Salisbury, and, determined to be a nurse, entered Street Thomas" Hospital and the Nightingale School of Nursing in the summer of 1929. She completed her training as a nurse with the silver medal, but declined to join the League of Street Barnabas, an Anglican society for nurses.
Career
She took her midwifery training at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, then returned to Street Thomas" Hospital as a ward nursing sister. When war broke out in 1939 she joined the Queen Alexandra"s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QARANC), was mobilised at Congleton, was present during the evacuation from Dunkirk, and served in, among other places, Iran and Italy. When she was free from family commitments she was appointed matron and lady superintendent of nurses of Street Thomas" when the hospital was being rebuilt after being hit 13 times by German bombs.
Turner deputised as a Royal College of Nursing representative on the Whitley Council which negotiated nurses" salaries.
After retiring, she became president of the RCN. She later relocated to Scotland, where she served on the Argyll and Clyde Health Board. Theodora Turner died at Wantage, Oxfordshire, aged 92, from old age.
ARRC, 1944
Education Officer, Education Centre, Royal College of Nursing, Birmingham, 1953-1955
Matron, Street Thomas" Hospital and Superintendent, Nightingale Training School, 1955-1965
President, Royal College of Nursing, 1966-1968
President, International Council of Nurses, 1971-1974.