ABSTRACT
Sister Mary Jones had gained control of the nursing service at King's College Hospital and was now able to develop a training system which she and her Sisters directed. At mid-century, ladies, with their superior education and command', as Nightingale put it, were essential for organizing and directing the barely literate working-class nurses. Jones was a strict disciplinarian but despite Shepherd's attestations to the contrary, she and her Sisters were very supportive of their nurses. The Sisters' supportive approach is well illustrated by an event during the Crimean War. St John's House was the primary inspiration for the nursing services at two other London teaching hospitals: University College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital. The two reforming matrons the Sisters trained Margaret Burt, who introduced the new nursing at Guy's, and Sister Elizabeth, the first All Saints Sister-in-Charge at University College Hospital, provide another illustration of the leadership of St John's House in early nursing reform.
