Beryl Emma Burbridge, OBE (4 March 1902 – 27 November 1988) was an Australian hospital matron during the Second World War, working at a research unit creating new malaria treatments.

Her Australian-born parents were Maria Esther (née Wardle) and William Edward Burbidge.

She was in Papua New Guinea for just four months before she returned to Cairns in Queensland in 1944,[1] where she led the nurses at the Land Headquarters Medical Research Unit until the end of the war.

The breakthroughs gave a distinct advantage to the Australian military as rates for malaria fell from 74% to under 3%.

[4] Another painting by Nora Hensen of a nurse treating a patient at the unit shows Burbridge in the background.