In 1961 retired as the ICN's General Secretary and in 1967 she published a history of the International Council of Nurses.

Over the next ten years she rose through the ranks until in 1936 she was a "night superintendant"[1] when she joined a nursing administrators course at Royal Holloway which was funded by the Nightingale Fund[2] as part of the recently formed Florence Nightingale International Foundation.

[1] During the Second World War she served with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service in Egypt, France and India and in 1943 she was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her work "in the Middle East".

After the war she worked for the Ministry of Health before she became President of the National Council of Nurses Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1946-1968.

[1] Bridges died in St George's Hospital in London leaving instructions that there was to be no mourning or flowers.