The Ovens District Hospital (ODH) committee of management in early March 1896 defied convention and employed women as nurses; one of whom was thirty-three year old staff nurse Margaret Russell Stewart Winning. Two years later Margaret was promoted to matron; a position she held for almost twenty years.

One of eight children, Margaret was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Margret Stewart and Archibald Grant Winning. She and her siblings had a difficult childhood; their mother died early and their father, a baker, after being declared a bankrupt, left his children and second wife in Glasgow whilst he set up home in Melbourne where he married a young Irish girl.

Margaret over time became very popular and was well regarded as a matron who was not only devoted to her patients but who also raised a lot of money for the hospital's upkeep.

A long article extolling the virtues of Matron Winning and her staff was published in the Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 31 December 1904.

The local newspaper, the Ovens and Murray Advertiser, in December 1916 boasted that at least fifty nurses whose nursing training Matron Winning supervised, had all passed their examinations and acquired the necessary certification.

Matron Winning and the local community were particularly proud of the fifteen ODH trained nurses who enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service during World War One. They served in Egypt, Greece, England, France and India and on troop and hospital ships.

Ill health, as in tuberculosis, forced Margaret to resign as matron in September 1918. On hearing this news, the Ovens and Murray Advertiser asked its readers to subscribe to a testimonial for 'Matron Winning whose fame as a nurse and her remarkable devotion to her duties, day and night, had spread throughout the whole district'.

Margaret died shortly before Christmas 1919. Her death notice, published in the Argus simply read, WINNING - On the 15th December, at her sister's residence, 1 Bath street, Abbotsford, Margaret Russell Stewart Winning, aged 57 (late matron, O. D. Hospital, Beechworth).