Eglantyne Jebbs

Eglantyne Jebb (25 August 1876 – 17 December 1928) was a British social reformer who founded the Save the Children organisation at the end of the First World War to relieve the effects of famine in Austria-Hungary and Germany. She drafted the document that became the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Early life and family Eglantyne Jebb was born in 1876 in Ellesmere, Shropshire, daughter of Arthur Jebb and his wife and cousin, Eglantyne Louisa Jebb, and grew up at "The Lyth", her family's estate. The Jebbs were a well-off family with a strong social conscience and commitment to public service. Her mother had founded the Home Arts and Industries Association, to promote Arts and Crafts among young people in rural areas; her sister Louisa would help found the Women's Land Army in World War I. Another sister, Dorothy, who married the Labour MP Charles Roden Buxton, campaigned against the demonisation of the German people after the war and served as a faculty member at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, United States in 1929, teaching courses in English literature. A paternal aunt, a Victorian "new woman", introduced her and her siblings to carpentry, fishing and melting lead to cast bullets, and inspired her to go to University at a time when very few women did. Social activism, Cambridge 1900–1918 From 1895 to 1898, Jebb read history at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, intending to become a school teacher. Jebb taught for a year at St. Peter's School, Marlborough, built in 1904, closed July 2017. This convinced Jeb that teaching was not her vocation, though it had increased her awareness of childhood poverty. Jebb moved to Cambridge to look after her sick mother. There, encouraged by Mary Marshall and Florence Keynes, she became involved in the Charity Organisation Society, which aimed to bring a modern scientific approach to charity work. This led her to research urban conditions. In 1906, Jebb published Cambridge, a Study in Social Questions based on her research.