Dame Kathleen Annie Raven, DBE, FRCN (9 November 1910, Coniston, Lancashire, England – 19 April 1999, Oxford, England) was a British nurse, matron, government health official, health care engineer, and educational philanthropist. Career Matron, General Infirmary, Leeds (1949–57) Deputy Chief Nursing Officer, Ministry of Health (1957–58) Chief Nursing Officer, Department of Health and Social Security (1958–72) Background Kathleen Annie Raven was born and raised in Coniston in England's Lake District, attending Ulverston Grammar School. Art was a strong influence on her as a child; one of her grandmother's friends was the painter John Ruskin. She was brought up in a Plymouth Brethren household where her parents read a chapter of the Bible every night. She had three brothers with whom she climbed mountains, skated, fished and rowed. Her elder brother, Ronald Raven, became a surgeon. Visiting her brother when he was a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, she decided to become a nurse and started her training there in 1933. Career She trained as a nurse at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London (where her brother Ronald also trained as a doctor), qualifying in 1936. During World War II she was Ward Sister and Night Superintendent in that hospital. In 1946 she was appointed Assistant Matron there. In 1949, she was named as Deputy Matron at the General Infirmary in Leeds. She became Matron in the same year, and held the post for eight years. The General Infirmary at Leeds was the first teaching hospital to set up an Assistant Nurse Training Programme in 1955. While at Leeds she was a member of both the General Nursing Council and the Council of the Royal College of Nursing, as Chair of the Yorkshire Branch of the RCN. Raven was also a member of the National Executive Committee of the Association of Hospital Matrons and served as a member of the Leeds Central Area Advisory Board for Secondary Education. For several years she was External Examiner for the Diploma in Nursing at the University of Leeds. In 1957 she became a member of the Central Health Services Council. Raven left Leeds to go to the Department of Health in London, where she became Chief Nursing Officer in July 1958, succeeding Dame Elizabeth Cockayne. Later years After her retirement from the Department of Health in 1972, and the death of her husband very shortly afterwards, Kathleen Raven undertook a heavy burden