Dickson, Mary Bernard (c. 1810–1895)

views updated

Dickson, Mary Bernard (c. 1810–1895)

New Zealand nun, nurse, and school teacher. Name variations: Julia Diana Dickson, Mary Bernard. Born Julia Diana Dickson, c. 1810 or 1811, at Ipswich, Suffolk, England; died Aug 5, 1895, in Auckland, New Zealand; dau. of Julia and Richard Lothian Dickson; acquired nursing skills at St. George's Hospital, London, 1850s.

Converted to Catholicism as adult; entered Bermondsey convent of Sisters of Mercy, London, and became nun (1850); was one of five nuns assigned to work under Florence Nightingale at General Hospital, Scutari in the Crimea (1854); joined Auckland community of Sisters of Mercy (1857), performing educational and social work; helped to establish Marist convent in Wellington (1861), and became 1st superior of Sisters of Mercy outside Auckland.

See also Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Vol. 1).