Jones , Mary , 1813-1887 , nursing sister

Mary Jones was born in Tamworth, Staffordshire, 1813, the daughter of Robert Jones, cabinet maker. In 1853, she was elected as Superintendent of St John's House, London. Here she undertook to train and dispatch parties of Sisters and nurses to serve under Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. St John's flourished under her management, and in 1856, took over nursing at King's College Hospital, Sister Mary becoming the Sister-in-Charge. In 1866, St John's accepted a nursing contract with Charing Cross Hospital, London, and Sister Mary was also Sister-in-Charge there. In 1868, she resigned from St John's. With a number of other sisters, she founded a new Community known as the Sisterhood of St Mary and St John, located initially at 5 Mecklenberg St, moving to Percy House, Percy Circus, near King's Cross in 1868. In 1872/3, the sisterhood, with Mary as Mother Superior, moved to 30 Kensington Square, and founded the St Joseph's Hospital for Incurables. She contracted typhoid fever and died on 3 Jun 1887.