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History
M K Blyde was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, 30 March 1891. She served with distinction in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) during World War One, and was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Royal Red Cross (Second Class) (ARRC).
She trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital between 1919-1922 (gaining General Nursing Council registration in 1923), and on completion was appointed Sister of Fisk and Cheere Ward and Aural Theatre. She was known as Sister Mercia. Blyde worked as Assistant Matron at Norwich Hospital; Matron of West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds. In 1937 she was appointed Sister Matron at King's College Hospital 1937, a post which she held until 1947.
She also served on the Nursing Advisory Board and Selection Committee of the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service; Executive Committee of the Association of Hospital Matrons and of the Joint Committee of Headmistresses and Hospital Matrons; and President of the King's College Hospital Nurses' League.
Blyde was a member of the Voluntary Nursing Advisory Board to His Majesty's Prison Commissioners; Chairman of the Ladies Committee of the 1930 Fund; the Selection Board of the Overseas' Nursing Association' Council and House Committee of the Cowdray Club; and the Nursing Advisory Committee to the British Red Cross Society. As well, she was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Nurses of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the Committee of Management of the St Mary's Convalescent Home for Diabetics, Birchington-on-Sea; and Mrs Coward's Trained Nurses Co-operative Institute Committee.
She died in 1980.