Jane Senior
Jane Nassau Senior (1828–1877) was Britain's first female civil servant, and a philanthropist.[2] She was co-founder of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants (MABYS).
Life
Senior was born Jane Elizabeth Hughes at Uffington on 10 December 1828, daughter of John Hughes and the only sister of the author Thomas Hughes and five other brothers.[2]
Senior did relief work for material aid for the victims of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 as part of the inceptive National Society for Aid to Sick and Wounded in War, in 1905 reconstituted as the British Red Cross. She directed many practicalities for handling these donations.[3]
Work with impoverished children in Surrey led to Senior's appointment in January 1873, as an assistant inspector of workhouses. This post was given to her by James Stansfeld, against civil service opposition.[4] The goal of the post was a Civil Service Report, which she framed as covering both pauper girls as school children, and their histories after school.[5] When the Report appeared in 1875, the 1874 general election having intervened, it bore heavy criticism by Royal Navy senior officer Carleton Tufnell, acting in concert with The Times.[6]
A meeting called by the Reverend Thomas Vincent Fosbery (then chaplain to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce) in May 1874, at Lambeth Palace. It brought together Senior, Elizabeth, wife of the Very Reverend Harold Browne Bishop of Winchester, Catharine Tait, and Mary Elizabeth Townsend (1841–1918). They agreed to set up the Girls' Friendly Society, founded on 1 January 1875 so young, "wholly unblemished" servants could have a friend of a higher social class with whom to meet, read, sew, take refreshment.[7]
Senior, with
She died of 'cancer of the womb' and exhaustion on 24 March 1877, aged 48; and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.[11]
Associations
In Clapham, Senior knew Marianne Thornton, figure of the Clapham Sect and daughter of Henry Thornton, and her niece Henrietta Synnot, both of whom were involved in local schooling. Synnot became her assistant. Caroline Stephen made a very positive impression, and was an influence for the future.[14] In the aftermath of the "Eyre controversy", she made a point of inviting Emelia Russell Gurney, wife of Russell Gurney, to show her Jamaica sketches.[15]
In the early 1870s Senior worked with
Family
Jane married Nassau John Senior, son of
The marriage was unhappy. They had a son Walter Nassau (1850–1933).[2] He married Mabel Barbara Hammersley, daughter of Hugh Hammersley and his mother's friend Dulcibella Eden, in 1888.[21][22]
Dorothea Murray Hughes (1891–1952), daughter of Senior's brother Hastings Hughes, was a nurse and aid worker. She wrote Jane Elizabeth Senior: A Memoir (1915).[23]
References
- National Trust.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/45504. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26288. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/56691. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ISBN 978-0-19-818772-1.
- OCLC 60245383p118
- ^ Oldfield, pp. 285
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ISBN 978-0-415-18700-8.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ^ Saint 2013, p. 13.
- ^ Thom 2013, p. 22.
- ^
- "Lavender Hill" (PDF). Survey of London. University College London. 11 February 2013. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
- "Battersea". Bartlett School of Architecture. 6 December 2016. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
- ^ Wm. H. Allen and Co. (1856). Allen's Indian Mail, and Register of Intelligence for British and Foreign India, China, and All Parts of the East. p. 83.
- ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.
Sources
- Saint, Andrew, ed. (2013). "1. Public Buildings". Survey of London, Volume 49: Battersea: Public, Commercial and Cultural (PDF). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300196160.
- Thom, Colin, ed. (2013). "10. Lavender Hill: Introduction". Survey of London, Volume 50: Battersea: Houses and Housing (PDF). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300196160.
- Sybil Oldfield (2008). Jeanie, an 'army of One': Mrs. Nassau Senior, 1828–1877, the First Woman in Whitehall. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9.