Article

Agnes Dennis

Published Online March 25, 2008

Last Edited December 18, 2013

Agnes Dennis, née Miller, teacher, feminist (b at Truro, NS 11 Apr 1859; d at Halifax 21 Apr 1947). Dennis succeeded Edith Archibald as president of the Halifax Victorian Order of Nurses 1901-46, and of the Halifax Local Council of Women 1906-20.

Dennis, Agnes

Agnes Dennis, née Miller, teacher, feminist (b at Truro, NS 11 Apr 1859; d at Halifax 21 Apr 1947). Dennis succeeded Edith Archibald as president of the Halifax Victorian Order of Nurses 1901-46, and of the Halifax Local Council of Women 1906-20. She mobilized women in WWI for the Red Cross, of which she was provincial president 1914-20. They produced medical supplies, organized hospitals, looked after prisoners of war overseas, and sought to enter the jobs left by soldiers recruited for overseas service. Dennis also helped co-ordinate relief efforts for victims of the 1917 Halifax Explosion. Her determined but self-effacing style of leadership proved highly effective in building and winning recognition for women's organizations. On the death of her husband, Senator William Dennis, in 1920, she became president of the Halifax Herald Ltd. She had 10 children.