[2] Hanton gained a gold medal in 1917 in her exams when she qualified as a nurse after four years of training at the (later Royal) Adelaide Hospital.
Within two years she was a charge nurse and she made her first application to be the first matron at the planned Adelaide Memorial Hospital.
She was unsuccessful, but a similar application to a smaller 20-bed hospital at Renmark gained her the title of matron.
Meanwhile the Methodist church opened the thirty bed Adelaide Memorial Hospital and she became its matron in June 1922.
[2] The Methodist community had originally built the Memorial Hospital to remember the lives lost in the war, but also as a place where women could train to be nurses in a Christian atmosphere.