Mary Ann Ball Bickerdyke

Caring for soldiers, she declared that the officers were sufficiently looked after, and she would work where most needed. And they were ardently devoted to “Mother” Bickerdyke.

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Jean Neill Erwin

When the New Zealand Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was formed in 1942, Jean Erwin was appointed to the position of commandant, Southern Military District, with the rank of senior commander (equivalent to major).

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Mary Anne Reidy

Her contribution to backblocks nursing and the welfare of returned soldiers was recognised when she was made an MBE in 1956, and later when a room at the Te Awamutu RSA clubrooms was named after her.

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Leilah Gordon

In 1917 Leilah Gordon was appointed visiting nurse, under the Infant Life Protection Act 1907. In 1920, under the same act, she was appointed district agent for Otago. She was one of four officers appointed to each of the main centres. All children under six in Otago living with adults other than their parents were visited by her every few months. Most of these children were illegitimate and in poor health when they came into care. The mortality rate for illegitimate infants in the 1920s in New Zealand was high. But as a result of welfare intervention, among the hundreds of infants up to six years old living in foster care in Otago there were only three deaths between 1917 and 1926.

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Hester Maclean

She was largely responsible for drafting the Nurses and Midwives Registration Act 1925, which gave nurses a more direct role in nursing administration.

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