Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: February 2020 update: C20 nursing history

The latest Oxford Dictionary of National Biography update, released yesterday, includes the lives of 20 leading figures in the nursing profession in the twentieth century, and coincides with 2020 being designated by the World Health Organization as the Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

The newly-added entries have been contributed by nurses as well as historians, led by the RCN History of Nursing Forum in collaboration with the UK Association for the History of Nursing, and curated by Teresa Doherty of the Royal College of Nursing Library and Archive.

The lives range from Anne Campbell Gibson (1849-1926), matron of the Birmingham workhouse infirmary, which came to be regarded as the best-managed poor law infirmary in the country, to Annie Therese Altschul (1919-2001), who fled Austria in 1939 and settled in Britain, where she became an authority in psychiatric nursing.

The update includes the lives of the founding generation of the Royal College of Nursing (1916) and the introduction of state registration of nursing (1919), as well as  those who went on to work under the NHS, developing teaching and research programmes for nurses.

Mark Curthoys, Senior Research Editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Jan 2020 update

The latest update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – published 9 January 2020 – adds biographies of 228 men and women who died in 2016, and who left their mark on British national life. Of these, the earliest born is the author E.R. Braithwaite (1912-2016) and the latest born is the geriatrician and campaigner for compassionate care in health services, Kate Granger (1981-2016).

It was often remarked at the time that 2016 was the worst year ever for what were termed ‘celebrity deaths’, and there are many new entries that provide corroboration for this lament. David Bowie (real name David Robert Jones) and George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou) were both global celebrities, who not only shaped and transformed popular music, but also challenged conventional attitudes to sexuality and gender identities. The release also contains a number of popular TV personalities and presenters, notably Sir Terry Wogan, Sir Jimmy Young, and comedian Ronnie Corbett.

The political lives included are in contrast hardly figures of the first rank, let alone celebrities. Cecil Parkinson was a favourite of Margaret Thatcher’s, but his wayward private life meant he never achieved the highest office, while Thatcher derided Jim Prior as one of the ‘wets’ in her cabinet. More poignantly, is the tragic figure of Jo Cox, sadly murdered during the 2016 referendum campaign at the age of only 41.

Scholars and scientists include forensic scientist Margaret Pereira, historian Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs, and chemist Sir Harry Kroto. As ever, we have a free selection of these new entries, together with a full list of the new biographies

Dr. Anders Ingram, Research Editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography