During a holiday in Europe with her family she met and was deeply impressed by deaconesses who were from the Institution of Kaiserwerth, which had earlier overseen the early nursing experiences of Florence Nightingale. Towards the end of her stay at Kaiserswerth Agnes was made superintendent of the boys hospital. She also visited the Institution in Bonn, and saw the hospital, orphanage, an asylum and two schools run by the deaconesses.
In 1859 she went to London, making contact with Florence Nightingale and Sarah E. Wardroper, senior nurse of St Thomas Hospital. Nightingale said of Agnes that she was " a woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius." In 1862 Agnes Jones commenced her nurse training in the Nightingale School at St Thomas Hospital in London and when her year's training was complete, Nightingale called her our "best and dearest pupil."
At the time the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary at Brownlow Hill was one of the largest infirmaries in the country catering for 1200 sick paupers. Liverpool philanthropist William Rathbone obtained permission from the Liverpool Vestry to introduce trained nurses (at his own expense for three years) at the workhouse hospital in 1864, and invited Agnes Jones to move up to Liverpool from the London Great Northern Hospital to be the first trained Nursing Superintendent in 1865.
When she arrived the conditions in the infirmary were described as 'disorder, extravagance of every description in the establishment to an incredible degree' so she quickly brought 12 nurses, trained at the Nightingale School of Nursing, to the Infirmary. This initial group, supplemented by further probationers and 54 able-bodied female inmates who were paid a small salary, was the first training for nurses in any workhouse infirmary, paving the way for nurse training systems in other workhouses across the UK. Some of Liverpool’s roughest people were inhabitants of the workhouse hospital, but Agnes had the respect of every one of them and began daily Bible readings with up to one hundred attending.
Agnes Jones' contribution to the welfare of the sick paupers was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever. This condition was endemic among the poor of Liverpool during this period. A Guardian review of her introduction said " it should read like a trumpet call in the ears of any lady who is conscious of a similar vocation".
The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor, is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. Also the former Women’s Hospital, which closed in 1995, was named Agnes Jones house when it reopened as student accommodation. Florence Nightingale again said of her, "A woman attractive and rich and young and witty; yet a veiled and silent woman, distinguished by no other genius than the divine genius. She overworked as others underwork. I looked upon hers as one of the most valuable lives in England."
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