Irene Hall

Hall was born in New South Wales at Ryde in 1888. Her Australian born parents were Harriett (born Noakes) and her husband Moses Slater Hall - who worked on a farm. She was educated locally.[1]

Nellie Gould and Sister Julia Bligh Johnston ran the private Ermelo Private Hospital in Sydney.[2] Hall was a nurse there in 1907 before she began training at Sydney Hospital the following year. She completed her training in 1913.[1]

In December 1914, Hall began work at the Royal Newcastle Hospital as a deputy matron and in the following year she became the hospital's matron. She served for 43 years and her name was said to be "synonomous with the institution". She kept a rigid discipline with her nurses when they were training. She said her discipline was more rigorous than the British army.[1] When the Matrons' Handbook of Lectures to Trainees was published in 1935[3] she was the editor.[1]

She first attended the International Council of Nurses congress in 1937. She later went to the congress in Atlantic City in 1947.[1]

Under the hospital's innovative medical superintendent, Chris McCaffrey, introduced initially unpopular reforms to nursing made with the help of Hall.[4]

In 1957 she attended her last International Council of Nurses congress which was in Rome and she became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.[1]

She retired in 1958.[1] In 1960 the Royal Newcastle Hospital's Irene Hall Nurses' Home was opened in Newcastle.[5] Hall died in 1961 in the Royal Newcastle Hospital.[1]

• Biography at the ADB