Isabel Crowdy OBE (1878 [1] - 25 July 1941 [2] ) was an English Women's Royal Naval Service member and social reformer. The inaugural secretary of the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women, she campaigned for the ongoing employment of women who had served in World War I and worked to make agricultural work and countryside holidays respected and accessible.
She was the daughter of solicitor James Crowdy and his wife Mary, née Fuidge, one of five children including Edith Crowdy and Rachel Crowdy, both of whom also served in WWI and were interested in social reform. One of Isabel's areas of interest was the value of women's handicrafts in rural areas. She also served as Secretary of the Army and Navy Male Nurses’ Co-operative. [3]
During World War I, she supported the Voluntary Aid Detachment, where her sister Rachel was a member, along with her friend Katharine Furse. [3] She was awarded the OBE on 23 June 1918 for her work as Commandant of Voluntary Aid Detachment Area for the British Red Cross Commission in France.
She then transferred to the Women's Royal Naval Service, where her sister Edith was deputy director, and was appointed assistant director of Inspection and Training on 9 March 1918. [4] [5]
She held an administrative role in the Association of Wrens, a society that held reunions for WRNS members, in 1921. [6]
In 1920, Isabel was appointed General Secretary of the newly formed Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women, where she became a member of the Council in 1922. [7] Collaborating with the Women's Institute, she undertook publicity tours of rural areas, promoting agricultural work as beneficial and patriotic for women. The aim was to provide ongoing employment for women who had served during the war. [3]
In the early 1930s she spent some time in Australia on the staff of Air Vice-Marshal Sir Philip Game, Governor of New South Wales, [8] where she was estimated 'probably the most popular private secretary in Government House annals.' [9] She was then appointed information officer to the Orient Line in 1934. [10]
During World War II, she worked as secretary to the Children's Country Holiday Fund, organising country holidays for city children. [11]
She died in London, 25 July 1941. [12]
Dame Margaret Isabel Cole was an English socialist politician, writer and poet. She wrote several detective stories jointly with her husband, G. D. H. Cole. She went on to hold important posts in London government after the Second World War.
The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for military personnel in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The most important periods of operation for these units were during World War I and World War II. Although VADs were intimately bound up in the war effort, they were not military nurses, as they were not under the control of the military, unlike the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service, and the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service. The VAD nurses worked in field hospitals, i.e., close to the battlefield, and in longer-term places of recuperation back in Britain.
Dame Meriel Lucy Talbot, was a British public servant and women's welfare worker. During the First World War, she organised the Women's Land Army and edited their magazine The Landswoman.
Dame Rachel Eleanor Crowdy, Mrs Thornhill, DBE was an English nurse and social reformer. She was Principal Commandant of Voluntary Aid Detachments in France and Belgium from 1914 to 1919 and Chief of the Department of Opium Traffic and Social Issues Section of the League of Nations from 1919 to 1931. She was an active member of the British National Committee for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. She was made an honorary Doctor of Laws in 1927.
Edith Sheriff MacGregor Rome, RRC was a British nursing matron and administrator. She served as President of the Royal College of Nursing from 1933–34 and again from 1937–38.
Edith Mary Macfarlane was a New Zealand community worker, active with the British Red Cross Society during both World Wars, and with the Victoria League in Auckland.
Edith Anne Stoney was a physicist born in Dublin in an old-established Anglo-Irish scientific family. She is considered to be the first woman medical physicist.
Florence Ada Stoney was an Irish physician who was the first female radiologist in the United Kingdom. During World War I she served abroad as head of the X-ray department and of staff in makeshift hospitals.
Julian Phelps Allan, formerly Eva Dorothy Allan, was an English sculptor active between 1923 and 1960. In addition to her sculpting, she served in both the First and Second World Wars, eventually becoming a colonel in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and the first President of the ATS War Office Selection Board.
Edith Frances Crowdy CBE was the deputy director of the Women's Royal Naval Service, and served as the first general secretary of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.
Commandant Dame Jean Davies Lancaster, was a senior British naval officer who served as Director of the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) from 1961 to 1964.
The Joint War Organisation (JWO) was a combined operation of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem during the World Wars. It was first created in 1914 and ceased operations when World War I ended in 1919; the organisation was re-formed upon the British entry into World War II in 1939 and was active until its permanent disbanding in 1947. The Joint War Committee (JWC), a non-government administrative body, controlled the JWO and the Joint War Finance Committee managed its finances and concentrated on raising donations and funding.
Oscar Parkes was a Royal Navy surgeon, naval historian, marine artist, and editor of Jane's Fighting Ships from 1918 to 1935. He was an associate of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. The Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum have permanent collections of his artwork. His book British Battleships: "Warrior", 1860 to "Vanguard", 1950. A History of Design, Construction and Armament is regarded as a definitive source.
Frances Hermia Durham CBE was a noted British civil servant, the first woman to reach the rank of assistant secretary, who was largely responsible for organisation of women's services in the army, munitions and agriculture during World War I, for which she was appointed a CBE.
Beatrice Ethel Lithiby OBE was a British artist known as a painter and designer of stained glass and church furnishings. She served in both World War I and World War II in the British Army and in the former conflict also worked as a war artist for the Imperial War Museum.
Edith Hacon, also known as Rhyllis Llewellyn Hacon, later Mrs "Amaryllis" Robichaud, was an international socialite, an artists' model and a leading Scottish suffragist. She was vice-president of the Dornoch branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and president of the Women's Liberal Association. During the First World War she volunteered with the Scottish Women's Hospitals in France for three years and was awarded a silver Medaille des Epidemics, the British War Medal and Victory Medal. She would later take a key role in the development of Girl Guiding as an early leader in Dornoch in the 1930s.
Edith Helen Barrett CBE (1872-1939) was an Australian medical doctor and a founder of the Bush Nursing Association of Victoria.
Miriam Lightowler JP OBE born Miriam Butler was a local politician and mayor of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. She raised money for a replacement holiday home and she broke a number of firsts including first woman to be mayor or to be a member of Halifax's board of guardians.
Margaret Isobel Cooper, later known as Peggy Skipwith, was a British military officer who was Chief Officer and deputy director of the Women's Royal Indian Naval Service (WRINS) during the Second World War.
Edith Helen Pratt OBE was a British civil servant and Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and Women's Royal Air Force officer. In 1917, she received her OBE in recognition of her service during the First World War, and later achieved the rank of deputy commander.