Bessie trained as a nursery school teacher at Homerton College in Cambridge in 1931. She began teaching in a new school on a housing estate in Lancashire, working with deprived families and children suffering from malnutrition. In the Second World War, Bessie was seconded to the Ministry of Health to supervise nurseries in Lancashire, catering for children aged up to five, whose mothers were working in the steelworks.
She was attracted to the NNEB when it was founded in 1945, and in 1947 was made course tutor for the NNEB course at Nottingham Nursery Nurses Training Centre. In 1952, Bessie studied for the University of London Diploma in Child Development and on her return to Nottingham became principal of Waverley College until 1975. She was awarded the MBE in 1971.
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