{{Short description|Northern Ireland's first Chief Nursing Officer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Mona Elizabeth Clara Grey''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|OBE|FRCN}} (24 September 1910 – 27 May 2009) was a British nurse who was named Northern Ireland's first Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in 1960.<ref name="independent">{{cite news|title=Mona Grey: Health care advocate and Northern Ireland's first chief |last=Dopson |first=Laurence | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/mona-grey-health-care-advocate-and-northern-irelands-first-chief-nursing-officer-1767254.html |date=23 October 2011 |website=independent.co.uk |access-date=10 May 2021}}</ref> {{Infobox person | name = Mona Elizabeth Clara Grey | honorific_suffix = OBE FRCN | birth_date = 1910 | death_date = 2009 | occupation = Nurse leader | employer = Royal College of Nursing Department of Health (Northern Ireland) }}
==Biography== Grey was born and raised in Rawalpindi, British India (now Pakistan), the daughter of missionaries. Her mother died when she was six and so Grey and her elder sister, Trixie, attended Oakgrove boarding school near the Himalayas. The pair then went to the Church of England Missionary School in Bombay, where her sister died of tuberculosis.<ref name=ODNB>{{cite web |last1=Graham |first1=Margaret |title=Grey, Mona Elizabeth Clara |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-101761 |website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |accessdate=31 March 2020 |date=13 February 2020|doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.101761 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref>
She prepared to be a teacher at St. Bede's College, Shimla, where she graduated with honours and remained in India to work at Lawerence College in Murree Hills. In the 1930s she moved to London, looking for a teaching post. In 1933, she took a job at Royal London, then known as London Hospital.<ref name=ODNB /> It was there that she decided to become a nurse.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Dopson|first1=Laurence|title=Obituary Mona Grey OBE FRCN SRN SCM Former chief nursing officer for Northern Ireland, 1910-2009|url=http://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/ns.23.42.33.s47|accessdate=20 June 2017|journal=Nursing Standard|date=24 June 2009|volume=23 |issue=42 |pages=33|doi=10.7748/ns.23.42.33.s47|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Whilst at London Hospital she also qualified as a midwife.<ref name="independent" />
Grey subsequently played a significant role in restructuring its health services in Northern Ireland. In 1960, she was appointed chief nursing officer in Northern Ireland, the first person to be appointed to the role, a post she held until 1975, when she retired. She helped establish a research chair in nursing at the University of Ulster, and received an honorary doctorate from the university in 1999. She died in Holywood, County Down on 27 May 2009 aged 98.<ref name=ODNB />
==Royal College of Nursing== In 1946, Grey was tasked by the Royal College of Nursing to establish a Northern Irish branch. As part of this she undertook a number of fundraising efforts to pay for an office for the college, including writing plays and pageants for fundraising performances in the 1950s, and persuading the Governor of Northern Ireland Baron Wakehurst to allow the holding of a charitable event at Hillsborough Castle.<ref name="independent" />
Grey was the first salaried secretary of the RCN in Northern Ireland and served as leader of the college prior to her appointment as CNO. She was appointed an OBE in the 1952 New Year Honours. She was appointed Honorary Vice-president of the RCN in 1996 and Fellow of the RCN in 2004.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ford |first1=Steve |title=Tributes paid to Northern Ireland's first CNO |url=https://www.nursingtimes.net/archive/tributes-paid-to-northern-irelands-first-cno-30-05-2009/ |accessdate=31 March 2020 |work=Nursing Times |date=30 May 2009 |language=en}}</ref>
==Awards and honours== * '''RCN Northern Ireland Lifetime Achievement Award''' (2002) * Officer of the Order of the British Empire (1952)
Legacies * The '''Mona Grey Endowment Fund''' (Queen's University Belfast) * The '''Mona Grey Prize''' (Manchester University) * The '''Sarah Thewlis Good Citizen Award'''<ref>[http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/yoursay/news/11362978.Sarah_Thewlis_Good_Citizen_Award Sarah Thewlis Good Citizen Award profile], suttonguardian.co.uk; accessed 5 July 2015.</ref> * The '''Mona Grey Scholarship''' (London South Bank University)
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Grey, Mona}} Category:1910 births Category:2009 deaths Category:Civil servants from Northern Ireland Category:20th-century British women civil servants Category:Nurses from Northern Ireland Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Health professionals from County Down Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Nursing Category:People from Rawalpindi Category:NHS chief professional officers Category:St. Bede's College, Shimla alumni Category:21st-century British civil servants Category:21st-century British women civil servants Category:Women civil servants from Northern Ireland