Juanita Rule

Juanita Bennett Rule, (20 November 1914 – 23 March 2008) was a British nurse, educator and trade unionist.

Early Life
Rule was born in Cambridge House, Harbour Street, Broadstairs, in Kent on 20 November 1914. Her father was William Bennett Rule (1842–1918), a physician and surgeon, and her mother was Agnes Margaret, née Wood (1879–1935). At the time she was conceived her parents were living in Mexico where her father, who had been medical officer to the São Paulo railway in Brazil, managed the family tin mines. Her mother had returned to England on the outbreak of war, and lived for a short time in Broadstairs, but soon moved to Bath. Rule was initially educated at Bath high school, and then at St Margaret's boarding-school in Burnham-on-Sea. She stayed there until she was seventeen, but lacked the opportunity to carry out her wish to follow her father and study medicine due to her lack of science qualifications.

Education and early career
Rule completed her general nurse training from 1935-1938 at the Bristol General Hospital. She then did her part 1 midwifery at Radcliffe Infirmary Oxford. Rule worked as a ward sister at the Bristol Branch Hospital, Weston-super-Mare; she was also assistant tutor at the Royal Surrey Hospital, Guildford; and tutor at the Winford Orthopaedic Hospital Bristol. Following receiving a Cassel Hospital Bursary she studied psychological nursing for four months at the Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Diseases.

Rule moved into nurse education following the Second World War. Rule was appointed as Tutor in the Education Department of the Royal College of Nursing in 1949. She rose to become director of the Royal College of Nursing's Institute of Advance Nursing Education from 1971 until her retirement in 1976, and was the elected deputy president of the Royal College of Nursing from 1976 to 1978. Rule also received an MA from Edinburgh University - one of the first nurses to receive a degree.

In 1959 Rule was awarded a one year scholarship from the World Health Organization to visit the USA and Canada. During this year she visited fourteen universities and hospitals to explore nurse training and the development of nursing degrees.

Death
Rule died in Warminster, Wiltshire on 23 March 2008.

Honours
In the 1976 Queen's Birthday Honours, Rule was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her work with the Institute of Advance Nursing Education. Also in 1976, she was part of the first cohort of nurses to be appointed Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing (FRCN), "in recognition of her exceptional commitment to nursing practice through the better education of nurses at all levels".