In the early 1860s, Elizabeth Morrow, like so many others, migrated to Australia in the hope of a better life. She had been a servant in her birthplace of Northern Ireland and, at first, she continued working as a domestic servant after her arrival in Australia. Then, in January 1868, she began work at the Sydney Infirmary (now Sydney Hospital), a public hospital admitting the poor. Her timing was excellent.
In March 1868, six weeks after Morrow began work at the Sydney Infirmary, six British nurses arrived there. The group was led by Lucy Osburn, and employed by the New South Wales Government to train nurses at the infirmary in line with the philosophies advocated by Florence Nightingale. The nurses they trained
