Her legacy “will never be forgotten”
2018 archive image of May Tanner
Tributes have been paid to Bristol’s first Black ward sister, May Tanner, who has passed away at the age of 93.
May Tanner was a quiet pioneer in Bristol’s hospitals and worked in many roles in the health service across the city after she arrived as a teenager called May McIntosh, from her home in St Lucy at the very northern tip of Barbados, back in 1956.
She was promoted to be a Sister – a senior position running a ward – at the Bristol Royal Infirmary in 1966, a position she held until she retired in 1990.
The Bristol and Weston Hospitals Charity said May, who passed away last month, was a dedicated and caring woman who had “answered Britain’s call to help rebuild the nation after the war, especially within the NHS“.
“Throughout her career in general nursing, mental health nursing and midwifery, May dedicated herself to caring for others,” a spokesperson for the charity said.
“She served the NHS for around 20 years before retiring, leaving a legacy that paved the way for future generations of nurses.
“A true pioneer, role model and caregiver, May Tanner’s legacy will never be forgotten,” she added.
Sister May Tanner in the 60s
Bristol’s modern history had previously recognised community organiser Princess Campbell as Bristol’s first Black ward sister, after she battled to gain promotion in 1974, after years of being passed up for it.
It wasn’t until Bristol Live told May Tanner’s story for the first time in 2018 that her pioneering role was finally recognised.
Back in 2018, it was a reluctant May who came into the Bristol Post offices, mainly at the insistence of her devoted husband Michael, who said he thought it was about time his wife got the recognition she deserved.
READ MORE: The forgotten pioneer – Bristol’s real first black ward sister steps forward at last
May said she thought her ‘Bristol first’ had been missed because she married Michael and lived quietly in Southmead, and wasn’t known to the community in St Pauls.
May worked in various roles soon after arriving in Bristol – first at the Bristol Mental Hospital, then in London, and back in Bristol in the maternity hospital, after she married Michael in 1963. From 1965, she went to the BRI, where she stayed for 25 years.
“I’m the type of person not to push myself forward,” she told Bristol Live back in 2018. “In Bristol, I was busy working. I was going to work and coming home, and I was in a professional team and I was part of that.
“I found everybody supportive. In the hospital at least, I didn’t have any animosity,” she added.
Unlike Princess, she was lucky enough that she didn’t have to fight to achieve her position.
“I think one of the reasons (her achievement had been missed) would also be that I was married already, I was living initially at Michael’s house in Horfield, and then we moved to Southmead. I was away from St Pauls, I never went to City Road, maybe that’s why I’ve gone unnoticed by the majority of Black people, I don’t know,” she added.
“I just did my job and went home to my family, that was it,” she said.
May told Bristol Live back then that, in coming forward, she didn’t want to do down Princess Campbell’s many achievements. As well as being a prominent figure in the city’s NHS, Princess played a key role in setting up United Housing Association, helped run the Malcolm X Centre and was an important figure in Bristol’s Black community, especially around St Pauls and Easton.
Princess Campbell played a prominent role in the commemorations in 2007 of the 200 anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, and her tireless community work saw her awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2011.
She died in 2015, aged 76, and her funeral was a huge occasion for the whole of Bristol.