Rose Muir

Rose Caroline Muir MBE (12 January 1884 – 12 May 1970) was a New Zealand nurse. She was the aunt of Frank Muir. She became a registered nurse in 1909. In 1919 she became matron of Christchurch Hospital, and continued in that job until poor health forced her to retire in 1936. In 1923 she founded New Zealand's first preliminary training school for nurses. In 1924 she wrote to the hospital board stating the need for a chapel, and was thus important to the creation of the Christchurch Hospital Nurses' Memorial Chapel, which was approved in 1925 and had its foundation stone laid in 1927. (Sibylla Maude and Mabel Thurston, both former matrons of Christchurch Hospital, first thought of a chapel at the hospital before she wrote.) She also served as honorary secretary (1916–19), executive committee member (1924–36), and president (1929–30) of the New Zealand Trained Nurses' Association, as well as being vice president and president of its Canterbury branch multiple times. Upon her retirement the Association honoured her with lifetime membership. From 1931 to 1936, she was a member of the Nurses and Midwives Registration Board, and she was a Sunlight League of New Zealand foundation member as well. In 1937 she became one of ten nurses who were the first nurses to be appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In 1940 Walter Fox donated a Rose Muir medal to be awarded in her honour. In 1962 some of her former students founded the Rose Muir Association. After Muir died a stained glass window was commissioned in the Nurses' Memorial Chapel as a memorial to her.