Victoria Alexandrina Muriel May, Baroness Plunket (17 May 1873 – 11 February 1968) was a nursing association founder and vicereine.
After marrying William Lee Plunket, she moved to New Zealand and later the UK. Influenced by the health reformer Truby King, she founded the Plunket Society in New Zealand, offering free health services to mothers and children. She was also a patron of the Mothercraft Training Society.
At 18, when in Italy, Victoria met William Lee Plunket, 26. They married three years later in Paris.[4] They had 8 children.[5]
Following her husband's death, she married Francis Powell Braithwaite on 1 October 1920.[1]
Victoria gave her name to the Plunket Society, a New Zealand society promoting the health and well-being of mothers and children,[6] after meeting Truby King, whose work she admired. She came up with an idea of a special guild of district nurses who promoted good diet and nutrition, hygiene, fresh air and breastfeeding (or 'humanised' milk, if breastfeeding was impossible) for babies. These services were to be free to all mothers.[4][1]
She was a patron of the Mothercraft Training Society.[2]
Lady Victoria Braithwaite (as she was then styled) died on 11 February 1968 at the Penywern Nursing Home, London.[1]