Donor of the Christ Ascendant Statue
St. Wilfrid's Church

The bronze statue of Christ Ascendant by scuptor Uli Nimptsch, dedicated in 1964 by The Bishop of Chichester, The Right Reverend Robert Wilson, was originally donated anonymously.

The fascinating story about the seven and a half year battle by the donor to get a design accepted and installed above the altar on the East wall and the details about the two relocations may be found by clicking here.

At the time of the dedication, the only reference to the unnamed donor was a  report in the Bognor Post that revealed the epic struggle to get the sculpture accepted -" it has taken seven and a half years to get this done”, said the donor. “Believe me, during those years, that blank wall nearly got between me and my God”.

Now, in the Centenary year of the church, over fifty years since the donor started the epic battle to have the statue installed, forty two years after her death and after an exhaustive check to make sure there are no living descendents, it seems very fitting to reveal the donor of this most generous gift.

The donor was Miss Helen Dey, at one time Matron of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, whose achievements in in the field of nursing more than equipped her to take on in her retirement all the pressures of getting her statue plans accepted. Her life proves to be at least as fascinating a read as the rest of the statue story! 

It is to be hoped that, in our Centenary year, we may have installed an informative plaque that records the name of the donor and the sculptor  of this most important work of art that at last has found a worthy prominent and effective permanent location high on the west wall. PG

Summary - Helen Dey
1909 Probationer
1912 Certificate
1914 QAIMNS/R France
1916 QAIMNS
1919 QAIMNS Tralee Ireland
1921 Resigned
Receiving Hospital Detroit
Assistant Matron
General Infirmary at Leeds
1927 Matron St Bartholomew's Hospital
1946 Awarded CBE
1949 Retired
1968 Died 5th June

Family
Helen Dey was born in 1888, in the London parish of St. George, Hanover Square. Her parents were Robert Alexander Dey and Amelia, née Calder, who were married in Kensington, in 1878. They were both Londoners, Robert having been born in Bloomsbury in 1839, and Amelia in Kensington in 1856.

Prior to this, Robert had married Frances Annie Cole in 1875, but she had died in 1876, soon after giving birth to their son, also called Robert who died six years before Helen was born at the age of just 6 years.

Robert Alexander Dey was a baker (1881 Census shown as living in Regent Street, with his wife and three children). He employed eight men, a boy, two shopwomen, and two domestic servants.

Helen and her a twin brother Arthur were the youngest of eight children of which 2 brothers died the year they were born (her twin Arthur and also William five years her junior), Ronald who died in his second year and the year Helen was born  and three surviving brothers - Charles, Alexander and Henry and a sister Margaret eight years her senior.

Education
According to her entry in Who’s Who, Helen was educated at Aberdeen and from the age of twelve in Berlin.

Training
Helen entered St. Bartholomew's on 1st November 1909 to train as a nurse and completed her training shortly before the outbreak of World War I.

Nursing Career
She enrolled with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Medical Nursing Service (QAIMNS/R) on 5th August 1914 and mobilised on the 16th August and served in France in the Reserve for the next two years  after which she joined the Regular Army service. Her hard work in the ambulance trains and in the operating theatre, her integrity and strength of character were shown to the full and she was twice mentioned in Dispatches and awarded the Royal Red Cross (RRC) .

In 1919 she left France and was posted to Ireland where the Civil War was in progress. Here she took charge of the Hospital in Tralee, working under the most difficult conditions. She was not allowed out without an escort of two and items such as cotton wool were unobtainable until Jack Shanahan, one of the rebel leaders, was injured and came under her care, which immediately rectified matters.

Helen resigned from the Army in 1921 and spent the next three years at the Receiving Hospital, Detroit, USA as supervisor of the Outpatient Department and later as Assistant Superintendent of Nurses, meeting there the horrors of drug addiction, rife in the city at that time.

On her return to England she was appointed Assistant Matron at the General Infirmary at Leeds until 1927 when she became the Matron and Superintendent of Nurses at Barts until her retirement in 1949.

In 1937 she was awarded the OBE.

During World War II Helen Dey was the Sector Matron responsible for staffing hospitals within her sector, and with the recruitment and allocation of members of the Civil Nursing Reserve. At St. Bartholomew's the greater part of the training school was evacuated to Hill End Hospital, St. Albans and the sector administration moved out to Piggot's Manor, Letchmore Heath.