{{Short description|Nursing association founder}}{{Infobox person | name = Victoria May, Baroness Plunket | image = Lady Victoria Alexandrina Hamilton Plunket (cropped).jpg | caption = {{circa|1905}} | birth_date = 17 May 1873 | death_date = 11 February 1968 | spouse = William Plunket, 5th Baron Plunket }}
'''Victoria Alexandrina Muriel May, Baroness Plunket''' (17 May 1873 – 11 February 1968) was a nursing association founder and vicereine.
After marrying William Lee Plunket, she moved to New Zealand and later the UK. Influenced by the health reformer Truby King, she gave her name to and was a patron of the Plunket Society founded by Truby King in New Zealand, offering free health services to mothers and children. She was also a patron of the Mothercraft Training Society.
== Early life == Victoria Alexandrina Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood was born in Ottawa, Canada, on 17 May 1873.<ref name="OppenheimerODNB">{{cite journal |last1=Oppenheimer |first1=Melanie |authorlink1=Melanie Oppenheimer |title=Plunket [née Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood; other married name Braithwaite], Victoria Alexandrina Muriel May, Lady Plunket (1873–1968), nursing association founder and vicereine of New Zealand |journal=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=9 September 2021 |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.69505|isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref> She was the youngest daughter and second-youngest child of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood. Her parents were part of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy.<ref name="OppenheimerODNB"/>
Her older sister, Helen, was involved in nursing and nurses' rights as well as her other older sister, Hermione.<ref name="Oppenheimer">{{cite journal |last1=Oppenheimer |first1=Melanie |authorlink1=Melanie Oppenheimer |title='Hidden under many bushels': Lady Victoria Plunket and the New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children |journal=New Zealand Journal of History |date=2005 |volume=39 |issue=1 |url=http://www.nzjh.auckland.ac.nz/docs/2005/NZJH_39_1_03.pdf |access-date=30 September 2021 |archive-date=30 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210930082715/http://www.nzjh.auckland.ac.nz/docs/2005/NZJH_39_1_03.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>
She was baptised in Quebec and named after her godmother, Queen Victoria. Her godfather was John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. Aged 5, she travelled to Ireland with her family.<ref name="OppenheimerODNB"/>
Blackwood arrived in New Zealand in 1904<ref name="Oppenheimer" /> but went back to the United Kingdom with her husband in 1910.<ref>{{cite web |title=Lady Victoria Plunket |url=https://www.plunket.org.nz/plunket/about-plunket/who-we-are/lady-victoria-plunket/ |website=Plunket New Zealand}}</ref>
== Marriage == At 18, when in Italy, Victoria met William Lee Plunket, 26. They married three years later in Paris.<ref name="stuff">{{cite news |title=Lady Victoria, the celebrity face of Plunket |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/lifestyle/92430269/lady-victoria-the-celebrity-face-of-plunket |access-date=30 September 2021 |work=Stuff |date=12 May 2017}}</ref> They had 8 children.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Royal New Zealand Plunket Society {{!}} NZ History |url=https://nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/royal-new-zealand-plunket-society |access-date=2026-03-18 |website=nzhistory.govt.nz}}</ref>
Following her husband's death, she married Francis Powell Braithwaite on 1 October 1920.<ref name="OppenheimerODNB" />
== Work == Victoria gave her name to the Plunket Society, a New Zealand society promoting the health and well-being of mothers and children,<ref name="Plunket Society">{{cite web|title=Our history|url=http://www.plunket.org.nz/about-us/our-history|publisher=Plunket Society|access-date=12 November 2010}}</ref> after meeting Truby King, whose work she admired. She came up with an idea of a special guild of district nurses who promoted good diet and nutrition, hygiene, fresh air and breastfeeding (or 'humanised' milk, if breastfeeding was impossible) for babies. These services were to be free to all mothers.<ref name="stuff" /><ref name="OppenheimerODNB" />
She was a patron of the Mothercraft Training Society.<ref name="Oppenheimer" />
== Death == Lady Victoria Braithwaite (as she was then styled) died on 11 February 1968 at the Penywern Nursing Home, London.<ref name="OppenheimerODNB" />
== References == {{reflist}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Plunket, Victoria}} Victoria Victoria Category:Daughters of British marquesses Category:British baronesses by marriage Category:1873 births Category:1968 deaths