Career
During World World War II she was Ward Sister and Night Superintendent in that hospital. In 1946 she was appointed Assistant Matron there. In 1949, she was named as Deputy Matron at the General Infirmary in Leeds.
She became Matron in the same year, and held the post for eight years.
The General Infirmary at Leeds was the first teaching hospital to set up an Assistant Nurse Training Programme in 1955. Foreign several years she was External Examiner for the Diploma in Nursing at the University of Leeds.
Raven left Leeds to go to the Department of Health in London, where she became Chief Nursing Officer in July 1958, succeeding Dame Elizabeth Cockayne. Kathleen Annie Raven was born and raised in Coniston in England"s Lake District, attending Ulverston Grammar School.
She had three brothers with whom she climbed mountains, skated, fished and rowed.
Her elder brother, Ronald Raven, became a surgeon. She worked for the Civil Service Commission and was appointed a Governor of Epsom College and of Aylesbury Grammar School. She died at the age of 88 in 1999.
Kathleen A Raven Lecture at the Royal College of Nursing to provide a platform for distinguished speakers to promulgate their views on current nursing problems.
Dame Kathleen Raven Chair in Clinical Nursing was endowed by Raven in 1998, the year before her death.