Elizabeth Frances Shippen

Elizabeth Frances Shippen, previously Lt Colonel Elizabeth Frances Johns RRC (24 November 1894 – 3 June 1982) was an Australian matron and army nurse. She rose to the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was awarded a Royal Red Cross medal for gallantry. In peace time, she was matron at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne.

Life Shippen was born in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood in 1894. Her Australian mother was Jessie McKinley (born Taylor) and her British-born father was William Yeomans John Johns. She was their second child and they had two more. She trained as a nurse and as a midwife and in 1940 she was promoted to matron at the Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. The appointment was short as she volunteered to join the Australian Army Nursing Service. She joined the service and in October 1940 she was promoted again to the rank of matron. and she was promoted to the rank of Major. In October, she rejoined the 2/7th AGH, who by then were in Papua New Guinea. In 1953, she was briefly the wife of John Mitchell Shippen before he died.