Rosalie Dreyer
Dreyer, Rosalie (1895–1987), nurse

Rosalie Dreyer (3 September 1895 – 21 May 1987) was a Swiss-born naturalised British nurse and administrator. Immigrating to England at the age of eighteen, she trained as a nurse in London and worked her way through the ranks to become matron, principal matron and chief matron-in-charge of the Nursing Service of the London County Council. Dreyer was a pioneer in the development of Britain's public-funded nursing service.
Early life
Rosalie Dreyer was born on 3 September 1895 in Bern, Switzerland to Elisabeth (née Neuenschwander) and Johann Dreyer. She was the oldest of four daughters and her father managed a dairy co-operative. Though Lutheran, after receiving her basic education from a school run by Catholic nuns, Dreyer traveled to England in 1914 as a nanny to a Swiss family who had settled abroad. In 1934, Dreyer became a naturalized British citizen.
Early nursing career
Dreyer entered nurse training in 1918 at Guy's Hospital of London and earned her state registration certificate in 1922. Dreyer worked for a year as private nurse before returning to Switzerland in 1923 to work at the Rollier Clinic, a tubercular hospital in Leysin. She returned to England in 1924 and resumed work at Guy's Hospital, qualifying as a midwife in 1926 and working in a number of staff nurse and sister posts.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rosalie Dreyer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.