Ethel Gordon Fenwick was a woman of great strength and leadership. Credited with founding the International Council of Nurses (ICN), the British Journal of Nursing, and a large number of other nursing organisations (most with the goal of achieving state registration for nurses in Britain), she was a suffragette, a feminist, a mother and wife. Born Ethel Gordon Manson on 26 January 1857 in northern Scotland, she was k was determined to become a nurse and started her training as a paying probationer at the Children’s Hospital in Nottingham at the age of 21 (Gordon Fenwick, 1901). After a year at Nottingham, she moved to the Manchester Royal Infirmary and, on completion of her training, was appointed Sister of Charlotte Ward at the London Hospital. By 24, Gordon Fenwick was Matron at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, a position she held for six years until her marriage to Dr Gordon Fenwick in 1887. She set out to improve the standard of nursing through the establishment of a three-year training programme for nurses, and expecting very high standards from her nursing staff. Gordon Fenwick also became very aware of the need to protect the public from untrained nurses. These concerns led directly to her life-long work in advocating for the professional independence of nurses through policy, legislation and practice.

Gordon Fenwick was elected as the first president of ICN, a position she held for five years. She was subsequently appointed honorary president with a seat for life. Gordon Fenwick did not end her involvement with ICN and continued her involvement for the rest of her life, attending congresses in 1909, 1912, 1931, and 1937. Meetings of the ICN executive continued to be held regularly at her home.

Gordon Fenwick established several other enduring legacies. At the 1912 congress in Köln, she announced plans for a Florence Nightingale Memorial Fund to help support the education of nurses subsequently formed in July 1934. The foundation continues to support the advancement of nursing education, research and other services to this day. Its signature project is the Girl Child Education Fund (GCEF). She coined the first ICN ‘watchwords’, which are chosen by each ICN President, and is a tradition that has continued since the first watchword ‘work’ in 1901. Gordon Fenwick was at pains to point out that ICN should avoid ‘political entanglements and any suspicion of political ‘bias’ (Bridges, 1967, p.87).