Tryphena Anderson

Tryphena Anderson was a Jamaican-British nurse, the first black health visitor in the United Kingdom.

Life

Tryphena Anderson was born in Jamaica, where she attended a Church of England school. In December 1952, a week after leaving school, she sailed for England, arriving in Liverpool on the RMS Franconia from New York.
Anderson recalled teachers having low expectations of her at school. As a black person in 1950s Britain, Anderson felt labelled as a "darkie" rather than truly accepted as a "person". She felt acute isolation:
Anderson nevertheless trained successfully as a nurse at Nottingham General Hospital and did psychiatric nursing at the Coppice Hospital. She did further postgraduate training in the early 1960s. In 1966 she qualified as a midwife, and in that year also became Britain's first black health visitor.
From 1988 until 2002 she owned and ran a nursing home.