Eglantyne Jebb bust unveiled

100 years and one day since Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton launched Save the Children at a packed public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall, I was very moved to see a new bronze bust of Eglantyne unveiled at the same venue. You can see a short film of the event here. The sculpture was created by the award-winning artist Ian Wolter who donated his time and work for free, mainly because he is a long-standing supporter of the Fund, but also because he is my husband. The cost of the bronze was generously sponsored by Save the Children’s former Chairman, Peter Bennett-Jones, and broadcaster and ambassador for the Fund, Natasha Kaplinsky, kindly did the actual unveiling.

Natasha Kaplinsky and Clare Mulley with Ian Wolter’s bronze bust of Eglantyne Jebb

Eglantyne and Dorothy had arrived at the same hall a century earlier, when the trees across the road were rather shorter and there was less traffic pollution on the building’s beautiful façade. The sisters did, however, have to face some fairly hostile elements among the crowd that had gathered that day. Some had even brought rotten fruit and vegetables to throw at the ‘traitor sisters’ who wanted to ‘give succour to the enemy.’ Eglantyne silenced them all as she called out, ‘Surely it is impossible for us as normal human beings, to watch children starve to death, without making an effort to save them?’ Potatoes went back into bags, purses came out, and a spontaneous collection was taken up around the hall.

The Royal Albert Hall hosting the launch of Save the Children on 19 May 1919

The unveiling of the bronze of Eglantyne Jebb, 20 May 2019

Fortunately, a century later, Save the Children’s CEO Kevin Watkins, and Craig Hassall, CEO of the Royal Albert Hall, had left their rotten veg at home, as had the Fund’s trustees, many committed volunteers and supporters, and quite a few members of the Jebb and Buxton families who joined us.

As her biographer, I was delighted to open the event with the story of Eglantyne’s arrest in Trafalgar Square, the brilliant defence she mounted at her Mansion House court case, and her and Dorothy’s ambitious initiative to capitalise on the blaze of publicity that followed the trial by launching the Fund a few days later. Just before I stepped up to the mic, a lady who looked vaguely familiar introduced herself.

I first met Amanda Richards when I worked at Save the Children in the corporate fundraising team, over twenty years ago. Amanda was one of three guests to join me on the Fund’s first ever programme visit for major corporate supporters. In 1998, we travelled together for two weeks in India.

Amanda Richards (3rd from left), Clare Mulley (in SCF t-shirt) with staff from one of Save the Children’s partner community organisations in India, 1998

Our first stop was to see the mobile crèche set up by the Save the Children for the children of female construction workers on the building site of an international hotel. This was a pilot scheme and, seeing the many benefits to both child welfare and worker productivity, it was soon paid for by the construction company and extended to all their sites, before becoming standard industry practice.

At Save the Children’s mobile crèches project in Delhi, 1989

While we were joining in with some craft activity at the crèche, one of the children gave me a card she had made with a drawing of a flower. When Amanda left a week later, having seen a range of projects looking at child health, education through night schools, the supply of safe water, and a women’s collective making clothes, she took the card with her. Inside I had written a note for another Save the Children business supporter, a man who she would be meeting back in London. I don’t think I had seen Amanda again since then. She is now a Vice President of the Fund, among other activities acting as long-standing chair of the ‘Summer in the City’ ball that annually raises around £200,000.

A couple of weeks after the Royal Albert Hall event, Amanda and I arranged to meet again. Now she told me that her visit to India had stayed in her heart, and on her mind, ever since. She had expected to be moved and impressed, but she had not anticipated the impact of the work being either so wide or so deep. Staff explained how cycles of social exploitation and deprivation had been broken; companies had permanently changed their business models to align with children’s rights; and children had told her that they hoped to become teachers, doctors and even development workers!

Amanda Richards with Clare Mulley, 2019

Amanda had since read my biography of Eglantyne, The Woman Who Saved the Children, and I was delighted to sign some copies of the book that had been donated for guests at her centenary summer fundraising event. She was thrilled in turn that all the book’s royalties are donated to the Fund, so that every copy raises money as well as awareness.

When the book was republished this year, to mark the centenary, the arrest and trial chapters inspired scriptwriter and Save the Children supporter Charlotte Bogard McLeod to write a short play. This was then performed with Joely Richardson as Eglantyne, and Helena Bonham Carter as the judge, at Save the Children’s centenary gala in London’s Roundhouse. During rehearsals both actresses told me how inspired they were by Eglantyne, and how they hoped this play might go further… fingers crossed everyone please!

Helena Bonham Carter in judge’s wig, author and historian Clare Mulley, and Joely Richardson as Eglantyne Jebb.

                                                 

The Roundhouse, London, May 2019

Other Eglantyne events this year have included a series of talks in and around Ellesmere in Shropshire, a town which now has new street signs welcoming people to ‘The Birthplace of Eglantyne Jebb’, and an event at Cambridge University where I spoke with Dr Peta Dunstan whose biography of Eglantyne’s sister Dorothy, Campaigning for Life, has just been published. There has also been a new blue plaque to Eglantyne put up in Marlborough, where she once taught in the local school, and Anne Chamberlain has performed her excellent one-woman show, Eglantyne, all round Britain and in Switzerland, Lebanon and Tanzania!

                                                       Clare with the new Ellesmere town signs

With Dr Peta Dunstan, biographer of Dorothy Buxton

Flier for Anne Chamberlain’s one-woman play Eglantyne

Back home I have been interviewed about Eglantyne for national and regional press, for BBC TV World News, and on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme with Evan Davis. I’ve recorded podcasts for the Spectator and Dan Snow’s History Hit; and spoken at countless history and literary festivals and other events. ‘We have to devise means of making known the facts in such a way as to touch the imagination of the world,’ Eglantyne once said, not knowing what an impact her own life story might have.

Clare discussing Eglantyne Jebb with Matthew Amroliwala, BBC World News

The Woman Who Saved the Children has now been translated into Spanish and Korean, and recently I was pleased to talk about Eglantyne to members of the International Save the Children Alliance at their centenary conference in Lady Margaret Hall – Eglantyne’s own former Oxford college. This is where the bronze bust of her now lives, where it has already inspired plans for an annual Eglantyne Jebb lecture. Meanwhile a plaster edition of the bust, with a bronze patina, has been given a permanent home in Save the Children UK’s Farringdon head office, where everyone can see her.

International copies of The Woman Who Saved The Children

Finally, following my introduction to the Jebb family, this autumn the National Portrait Gallery will be including an original image of Eglantyne in the national collection. Perhaps it might be this one, below, showing her striding into action, apparently not noticing that her shoe-laces are undone and she is losing papers from her file. This is my favourite of all Eglantyne’s scratchy self-portraits, although I also very much love a set showing show her frightening a herd of sheep as she falls off her bicycle before getting back on again with true blue-stocking determination…

Eglantyne Jebb self-portrait, c.1901

These updates were all very good, but what Amanda wanted to know was what happened to the lovely corporate supporter to whom she had brought my flower-card from India. Readers, I married him… Watch out people, it is amazing how much the story of one brilliant, courageous, passionate and compassionate woman, can change your life!

Sculptor Ian Wolter with his bronze of Eglantyne Jebb, and author Clare Mulley

Clare Mulley’s first book, The Woman Who Saved the Children, won the Daily Mail Biographers’ Club Prize. The Spy Who Loved, now optioned by Universal Studios, led to Clare being decorated with Poland’s national honour, the Bene Merito. Clare’s third book, The Women Who Flew for Hitler, tells the extraordinary story of two women at the heart of Nazi Germany, whose choices put them on opposite sides of history. 

www.claremulley.com

Text and photos copyright Clare Mulley, with the exception of Eglantyne Jebb’s self-portrait and the Royal Albert Hall in 1919, which belong to the Jebb family and Save the Children.

Imagining Eglantyne

‘We have to devise a means of making known the facts

 in such a way as to touch the imagination of the world.’ 

Eglantyne Jebb 

Poster for Anne Chamberlain's production, Eglantyne

Earlier this month I was fascinated to see a new one-woman play called simply, Eglantyne, written, produced and acted by the New Zealand artist Anne Chamberlain. Eglantyne Jebb, around whose life the play is built, was the remarkable founder of the independent children’s development agency Save the Children, and author of the pioneering statement that has since evolved into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history. She was also the subject of my first biography: The Woman Who Saved the Children, and it is wonderful to see that her life is still inspiring people, both to write, and to support the vital work of Save the Children today. Proceeds from both my book and Anne’s play are donated to the charity.


Among Eglantyne’s many skills was an extraordinary ability to communicate the facts in such a way as to inspire others. She had a very vivid imagination and clearly loved words, writing numerous poems and romantic-social novels, as well as her pioneering statement of children’s rights. She also wrote and gave speeches, published leaflets and press articles, and made pioneering use of photographs and film footage to win support for her cause, often from initially hostile audiences.

Anne’s play opens with Eglantyne’s very public arrest in Trafalgar Square in the spring of 1919, for distributing leaflets calling for an end to the economic blockade that was contributing to the starvation of thousands in Germany and Austria. These leaflets had not been cleared under the Defence of the Realm Act – it had never struck Eglantyne that they might need to be. The crown prosecutor did not mince his words, but Eglantyne chose to represent herself and focused on the moral case. By the end of the session she had been found guilty, but the court reporters had plenty to pad out their stories with, and the crown prosecutor insisted on paying her fine.

Eglantyne Jebb, c.1921

Anne Chamberlain, as Jebb 2015

Save the Children was swept into existence on the wave of publicity that followed this trial, culminating with an exciting public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall. After listening to Eglantyne and her sister’s speeches, the crowds, who had arrived armed with rotten fruit to throw at the traitor women who wanted to give succour to the enemy, were instead inspired to put their hands in their pockets and fund a herd of Swiss dairy cows to provide milk for the children of Vienna.

Eglantyne gained the support of factory girls and aristocrats, the Pope and the Mining Unions, the British aristocracy and the Bolshevik government. She even won the backing of the wife of the Prime Minister whose policies she had campaigned against. ‘When she spoke’, her friend and colleague Dr Hector Munro later wrote, ‘everything seemed to lose importance and one agreed to do whatever she wished.’

Little surprise then, that Eglantyne’s words are still inspiring people today. In her play, Anne manages to integrate many wonderful examples of Eglantyne’s own phrases, from speeches and letters, into her script:

- ‘Humanity owes to the child the best it has to give.’

- ‘Every generation… offers mankind anew the possibility of rebuilding his ruin of a world.’

- ‘The world is not ungenerous, but unimaginative, and very busy.’

As I often still give talks about Eglantyne, and use many of the same quotes, it was strange to hear these words in someone else's mouth, with different intonations. But it was also really lightening - and heartening. At the end of the evening I felt as though, in a way, I had been kindly exorcised of Eglantyne. She will always be an inspiration, but my relationship with her feels less intense – it feels shared.

Eglantyne Jebb, c.1925

Anne Chamberlain as Jebb, 2015

Before I saw Anne’s play, I had wondered whether I would see a very different Eglantyne on stage, to the one I had come to picture to myself, someone I might not recognise even. This happened once before when I went to a production of Tony Harrison’s play in verse, called Fram. Fram, which means ‘Forward’ in Norwegian, was the name of the arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s ship. As the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Nansen became an associate of Eglantyne’s, helping to bring desperately needed relief to Russia during the famine of 1921. She greatly admired his spirit and energy, calling him a ‘solid viking’. Harrison’s play explored the relationship between art and aid, at times in quite provocative and painful ways. Eglantyne’s lines are the best in it, I think, and she was excellently played by Carolyn Pickles when I saw the production at the Royal National Theatre. But although Carolyn made me laugh by signing my programme ‘Eglantyne’, I did not feel a strong connection with the figure she had portrayed on stage. Perhaps, I thought for a while, I had imagined her wrongly... 

Save the Children feeds starving Russian children, 1921 

As we slowly approach Save the Children’s centenary in 2019, the charity has asked whether it might be possible to re-imagine Eglantyne, to bring her story to a new and younger audience – with a picture book about her life, adventures and achievements. I think this would be wonderful, and look forward to seeing yet another interpretation of this wonderful woman on the page… If anyone has suggestions for brilliant and inspiring children’s illustrators I would be delighted to hear them!

Sadly there is no one alive today who knew Eglantyne. There are photographs and sketches, but no one who heard her voice, and no recording of her. However, much of her writing survives, her actions speak volumes, and her energy, spirit, determination and often rather dark sense of humour, are palpable throughout. When I watched Anne Chamberlain’s play earlier this month, I was delighted to discover that I felt very familiar with the Eglantyne that she brought to life, which makes me hope that perhaps we both found something of the truth in this remarkable woman.

Anne and me, holding each other's writing about Eglantyne Jebb

I think that Eglantyne herself would have been fascinated by each reincarnation, and on the whole pleased, given that each helps to promote the cause – the welfare and rights of the world’s children – that she cared so passionately about. ‘A friend of mine once said to me that our minds, contemplating the truth, were like so many cameras turned towards the same building’, she once wrote. ‘No two cameras can be in the exactly the same position… so that no two precisely similar photographs can be taken; hence also, though some may be better than others, no single photograph, always supposing that it had not been faked, will be without its value.’

Sadly Anne’s play has now finished its British run, but it may be back next year and if so I will pass on the tour dates. I hope that between Eglantyne the play, my biography, and any new portrait, many more people, of all ages, may yet come to picture Eglantyne Jebb in their own way, and be inspired.

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Blue Plaque-tastic!

This week I was thrilled to learn that Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent during the Second World War, and the subject of my last biography, The Spy Who Loved, has been short-listed for a blue plaque in London. English Heritage, who run the scheme, have not confirmed the date or location yet, but have said that I may spread the word. I find it hard to imagine that anyone would not be pleased to have their building associated with such a heroine, so hopefully I will have good news soon, but these things are never guaranteed…

'Blue Plaques' is the title of the last chapter of my first book, The Woman Who Saved the Children, a biography of Eglantyne Jebb, the inspirational founder of Save the Children. In it I looked at all the memorials that have gone up to this remarkable woman. These include a community sports hall in her home-town of Ellesmere in Shropshire, the thriving village of Xheba in Albania, an English rose, and one of the better-known dogs belonging to HRH, The Princess Royal, Princess Anne - the Princess is the President of Save the Children, and one of many to admire the charity’s founder.

The Eglantyne Jebb memorial lamp Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

The Eglantyne Jebb memorial lamp
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

Eglantyne had a wonderfully dark sense of humour, and I think that this rather eclectic assortment or memorials would have amused her. As would the glass chandelier that hangs in the chapel of Lady Margaret Hall, the Oxford college where she had once read history. Each pendant is in the shape of a ‘white flame’, reflecting the nickname that she had earned for her burning passion for her work, as well as for her prematurely white hair. The chandelier was paid for by subscription among Eglantyne’s former college friends, but it has always amused me that among her papers I found a letter that Eglantyne wrote to her mother during her college days, bemoaning the dullness of her fellow students. If the new intake were as tedious next year, she joked, she would liven things up by putting a bomb in the chapel. And now she is remembered there with this very pleasant, if not wildly exciting, glass chandelier.

Blueprint for the memorial seat to Eglantyne Jebb

After Eglantyne’s death in 1928, blueprints were also produced for a stone bench, featuring Save the Children’s original logo, the swaddled babe, to be placed at the top of Mount Saleve outside Geneva in Switzerland. Eglantyne spent her last ten years in Geneva establishing the International Save the Children Alliance, and developing the five-point statement of children’s universal human rights that has now been enshrined as the United National Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history. Permission was given for the bench, but when Eglantyne’s sister, Dorothy, discovered how expensive it would be, all donations were reallocated to support children in need in Ethiopia instead. No doubt Eglantyne would have approved.


Of course Eglantyne’s real legacy is not a stone bench, a sports hall, or glass chandelier; it is the wonderful work of Save the Children, saving the lives and improving the life chances of millions of children every day, and the value of the UN Convention, by which institutions, and even governments, may be held to account. However, I was delighted a few years ago when a Blue Plaque was put up at 82 Regent Street, in Cambridge, to mark the building where Eglantyne once worked for a local charity. 

Eglantyne's blue plaque
before it was mounted at 82 Regent Street, Cambridge

The photo above shows Eglantyne’s Blue Plaque, with her dates being pointed out by her great, great, great nephew - who was marvelous at the event, suggesting we used it as an opportunity to raise some funds for the charity. He himself brought some pumpkin seeds to sell, which I duly bought and potted out with my own children. I am afraid to say that the seeds grew into marrows, so he may be considered a swindler, but absolutely the nicest I have met.

So it was with great disappointment that I learned recently that Eglantyne’s blue plaque has been removed. The building has been sold and the developers feel it reduces the value of the site! Save the Children has certainly had a bad couple of weeks since the US arm of the organisation decided to award their annual ‘global legacy’ prize to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his work tackling child poverty while in office. During this time Blair led the G8 nations at Gleneagles to agree to a doubling of aid to Africa, debt cancellation and universal access to Aids treatment. However, Blair’s public legacy has since been overshadowed by his role taking Britain to war in Iraq, actions that Save the Children UK strongly opposed at the time. Hundreds of the UK staff, and thousands of others, have called for the prize to be rescinded, and meanwhile the charity, its many supporters and, most importantly, the children assisted by projects around the world, are facing a serious crisis in terms of support. However, I doubt that this is what the Cambridge developers were concerned about.

Blue plaques are street signposts that operate in another dimension. Instead of showing the way to the motorway or market, they point back in time to the special agent or humanitarian who once lived or worked in that spot – stories that enrich us all as we pass by. I will keep working to try and get Eglantyne Jebb’s plaque replaced. Perhaps the owner of the building opposite might let us project an image of a plaque across the street? Or, once the building is sold again, we might have better luck with the new owners. I will also be keeping my fingers crossed for Christine Granville’s proposed plaque to make it through the final stages at English Heritage.

In the meantime I was hugely cheered to see this 'blue plaque' sticker, marking the door of the flat where the History Girl bloggers met for our Christmas party last week - and it was reproduced on one of the cakes too! With signs like these still being made and appreciated, I feel there is hope yet for Eglantyne’s plaque!

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Eglantyne Jebb, The Woman Who Saved the Children

Ninety-five years ago this month, in May 1919, a remarkable woman called Eglantyne Jebb, and her sister, Dorothy Buxton, changed the world.

Many years ago, I worked as a rather struggling corporate fundraiser at Save the Children. One day I came across a line written by Eglantyne, the charity’s founder, when she was also finding it hard work to raise funds. ‘The world is not ungenerous’ Eglantyne wrote, ‘but unimaginative and very busy’. That struck a chord with me, and I became rather intrigued about this woman, who spoke with such immediacy but who is so little known today.

Eglantyne Jebb at her Save the Children desk, c.1921

In 2001 I went on maternity leave to have my first child - thereby showing far less dedication to the cause than Eglantyne, who never had children of her own and worked tirelessly for the charity until she died. As I had two weeks before my due date, I decided to spend a some time finding out a bit more about Eglantyne.

Looking through the papers in Save the Children's archive, then in the charity’s basement, I came across the leaflet below. Although entitled ‘A Staving Baby’, the photograph actually shows a little girl from Austria who is two-and-a-half year old. Her disproportionately large head, compared to her body, is the result of malnutrition.

Eglantyne's leaflet, 1919

In the top right hand corner you can just see Eglantyne’s scribbled word ‘suppressed!’ The exclamation mark shows her personal indignation at the policy of the British Liberal government to continue the economic blockade to Europe after the First World War as a means of pushing through the harsh peace terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Eglantyne believed that the British public was unaware of the terrible human cost of this policy and set out to change things.

In the spring of 1919 she was handing out these leaflets in London's Trafalgar Square, a traditional site for public protest. One account even has her chalking up the pavements with her messages ‘Fight the Famine’ and ‘End the Blockade’, in suffragette style. Eventually, the government had her arrested.

When her case same to court that May, Eglantyne knew that legally she did not have a leg to stand on as her leaflets had not been cleared by the government censors under the Defence of the Realm Act, which was still in place. Nevertheless she insisted on conducting her own defence and, focusing on the moral case, she gave the court reporters plenty to pad out their stories with.

The Crown Prosecutor is the only person in this story with a name to rival Eglantyne’s. He was called Sir Archibald Bodkin, and he did not spare Eglantyne in his condemnation. She was found guilty and fined £5. ‘This’, she wrote to her mother, ‘is the equivalent of victory’, because she could have been fined £5 for every leaflet she had distributed, over 800, or even been given a custodial sentence.

Furthermore, after the session had officially closed, but before the court had been cleared, Sir Archibald came over and pressed a £5 note, the sum of her fine, into Eglantyne’s hands. Technically she had been found guilty, but clearly in the Crown Prosecutor’s eyes Eglantyne had won the moral case. This would be the first donation towards a new fund that Eglantyne and her sister Dorothy now vowed to set up – the ‘Save the Children Fund’.

Daily Herald, 16 May 1919

As you can see from the photo above, of the front page of The Daily Herald, the British newspapers gave the story prominent coverage. Eglantyne was also featured in The Times, The Mail, The Mirror and The Guardian.

But Eglantyne knew that, pleasing though this coverage was, publicity alone would not feed the starving children of Europe. Determined to capitalise on the publicity, she and Dorothy decided to hold a public meeting and see if they could win further support for the cause. Being ambitious women, they booked the biggest venue they could find: the Royal Albert Hall. Reports tell us that in the event, there were not enough seats in the hall for the numbers of people who arrived.

Crowds queuing to hear Eglantyne Jebb and Dorothy Buxton
talking at the Royal Albert Hall, 19 May 1919

However, to their horror, Eglantyne and Dorothy soon realized that many of the audience had arrived with rotten fruit and vegetables to throw at the ‘traitor’ sisters who wanted to give succour to 'the enemy'. At first Eglantyne nervously mumbled her words, but her voice rose with her passion, until she called out; ‘Surely it is impossible for us, as normal human beings, to watch children starve to death without making an effort to save them’. The crowd in the hall were shocked. Then, in the silence, a collection was spontaneously taken up.

Within ten days Eglantyne, Dorothy and the fledgling Save the Children Fund had invested in a herd of dairy cows to provide a sustainable source of nutrition to the children of Vienna. Thousands of lives were saved, and that was just the start…

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Women’s History Month: Eglantyne Jebb

Last night the paperback of my biography of Eglantyne Jebb was launched at the wonderful Women’s Library in London, as part of their on-going Wise Words Book Fest. The book’s publication was deliberately timed to coincide with Mothering Sunday because Eglantyne changed the way the whole world both regards and treats its children when she not only launched Save the Children at the end of the First World War in 1919, but went on to write the pioneering statement of children’s rights that has since evolved into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history.

Nevertheless I had to laugh at this Mothers’ Day schedule, because one of the many things that I love about Eglantyne was that she never had children of her own and was definitely not ‘the mothering kind’. In fact she once referred to children as ‘the little wretches’, and even the year she founded Save the Children, she wrote to her close friend Margaret Keynes, the younger sister of the economist, with typical dry humour; ‘I suppose it is a judgement on me for not caring about children that I am made to talk, all day long, about the universal love of humanity towards them’.

Perhaps this is partly why Eglantyne’s wonderful name is so little known today. Eglantyne spent her life defying conventions. As a young woman she considered leaving, and then bombing, her Oxford college. She consistently defied fashionable society in both dress and behaviour. She left the Church for her own very personal brand of spiritual Christianity. And she very publicly broke the law. And Eglantyne seems to have continued this independent trend ever since, eluding all the obvious academic and biographical categories by being neither a ‘great man’ of the type so much favoured by David Starkey and his predecessors, nor a maternal woman, and yet still a woman who devoted her life to children rather than some more obviously feminist cause such as suffrage.

While writing the book it took me some time to get my head around this apparent paradox at the centre of Eglantyne’s being; a children’s champion who was not fond of children. But Eglantyne was simply a great humanitarian. She recognised that children suffer in specific ways from starvation and may not be able to make up the lost ground both physiologically and psychologically as well as adults; that children are the world’s future citizens in whose hands lie both the opportunity and responsibility for creating a peaceful and more equitable society; and also that children make a good PR and fundraising hook – and then she just got on with it – brilliantly. Passionate but not sentimental, she moved from spiritualism in Shropshire to espionage in the war-torn Balkans, from illicit romance in Cambridge to public arrest in Trafalgar Square, on the way winning over the Pope and the miners, the aristocracy of Europe and the Bolshevik government, the crown prosecutor at her London trial and the fledgling League of Nations in Geneva.

Eglantyne has been incredibly neglected for someone whose achievements are so influential, and I have a sneaky feeling that if a man had penned the forerunner of the most widely accepted UN Convention in history we would all know his name very well. But at least she is getting some attention now, and perhaps it is not so ironic that the book is being promoted around Mothers’ Day. Mothers do not have a monopoly on concern about children’s welfare but most have a strong interest, and while Eglantyne chose not to have children herself – preferring to help the next generation from a strategic distance – she recognised and applauded the diversity of women’s social contributions, simply believing, she said, that ’to succeed in life, you must give life’ – in whichever way you choose.

'Being published'

Seven years after I first became interested in Eglantyne Jebb, my biography of the founder of the international development agency Save the Children, and author of what has since evolved into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history - was published last month. It’s a gem of a story, ‘The Woman Who Saved the Children’ was not fond of children herself, ‘the little wretches’ she once called them, and raced through a dramatic life of illicit romances, private spiritualism and public arrest before an early death. I managed to finish the draft in time for Save the Children’s 90th anniversary year, and hoped it would be an obvious best-seller.

Finishing a book seems to be a series of false dawns though, and writing the words ‘…and she died’ is of course just the start of it. Andrew, my agent, had secured my publisher, Oneworld Publications, after I had won the Daily Mail Biographers Club prize at end 2007, when I was half-way through writing. Now there was the editorial process, time spent sorting out index and bibliography, getting permissions for pictures and the excitement as a draft cover design came in.

Then I met the publicist. Oneworld is an independent publisher based in Oxford. I had heard stories of people being driven around in limos at this point in the process but was not surprised that Oneworld had a more modest budget – no limos, no party, lots of enthusiasm, a good press release and some great contacts, but not a whole lot of time… which was my excuse for getting as involved as possible.

I exchanged emails with a couple of independent publicists, who would I am sure do a brilliant job if you have the required budget to hand. In the end I went down a couple of different routes… Save the Children lent their PR support, sharing their media contacts with Oneworld, inviting celeb supporters to provide cover quotes, and asking me to be guest-blogger on their website. The Biographers Club were brilliant; making me the ‘featured author’ on their site and using their contacts to help get me a launch. Two of their three prize judges also came up trumps, inviting me to give talks and filing book reviews. And through them I also met Richard Foreman who describes himself as a ‘freelance consultant and publicist’ and is someone who knows a lot of other people… As well as organising regular drinks to get writers, reviewers and booksellers together in a basement bar in London’s Leadenhall Market, he sets up talks at bookshops, libraries and events around the country, and took me on a book-signing tour of London Waterstones and Blackwells the week before publication, handing out jaffa cakes and penguin biscuits with impunity wherever we went. (For elsewhere he got me to sign a good 200 bookplates and gave me warm contacts to mail them to at shops around the country.)

The rest of my publicity came from talking and writing to everyone I know, including some friends in PR who kindly took me under their wing resulting in a nice radio interview and a few more talks, as well as to any vaguely relevant publication and any literary festival at all – of which there are many. Collective results are good. Reviews have been published in the Daily Mail and Sunday Times as well as in publications from WI Life to Best of British magazine. Building on every angle in Eglantyne’s life I have also written articles myself for journals including Save the Children’s supporter magazine, the newsletters of The British Thyroid Foundation, Lady Margaret Hall Alumni News, and The Church Times. I also milked my own story, securing talks and press coverage where I grew up, went to college, and live now. So far I have around 30 talks from the Edinburgh Lit Fest to Ealing Library, and from my old school (don’t knock it, they ordered 100 copies) to a Royal reception for Save the Children. There were plenty of rejections too of course – although offering to speak with friends/others published in a similar area has also helped – I am doing a number of ‘Women in History’ talks, and also sharing platforms with Mark Bostridge and Alexander Masters at different events. Online I have my own website (courtesy of my brother-in-law) and Wikipedia page, as well as mentions on the site of every society I am a member of and every venue where I have spoken. I have even set up an Eglantyne Jebb Facebook fan group. However my favourite piece of publicity was being interviewed by Jenni Murray on Women’s Hour last week, courtesy mainly simply of Eglantyne having such a great story.

Is it working? Sales are good so far, and my Amazon ranking peaks with every big bit of PR – a sort of irregular pulse that tells me the book is still alive and kicking long after my subject breathed her last.

Clare's Save the Children Blog

In March 2009 Save the Children invited me to be a guest blogger on their website

Here are some of the posts... 

Grave Concerns

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Eglantyne died in December 1928, and was buried in a cheap wooden coffin at St George’s Cemetery in Geneva. From her grave it is just possible to see Mount Saleve, the imposing mountain just south of the city that Eglantyne had loved, and had climbed many times to help clear her head and gain some perspective on the issues that were concerning her.

Eglantyne had actually hoped to be buried somewhere on the mountain, and there is some evidence that her friend William MacKenzie, who made the funeral arrangements, had wanted to honour this wish. He had specified a simple gravestone, intriguingly with ‘no fibs’ to be written on it, and a cheap wooden coffin with ‘inexpensive fittings. And no name plate’. It is ‘a barbarous habit to label a coffin as tho’ you were inside it!!!’ he wrote, and in the end Eglantyne’s coffin only bore her initials. Most likely however he was simply agreeing with Eglantyne’s sentiment that once the spirit has flown, the rest is dust.  MacKenzie then planned a memorial to Eglantyne high on the mountain, but it proved too expensive and the funds raised eventually went to support programmes in Ethiopia instead.  Perhaps this is more fitting - Eglantyne would have been horrified at the thought of money being diverted away from Save the Children’s programmes, and in any case, she had long believed she was more spirit that flesh. ‘If I be dead, yet still I am not there,’ she wrote in her poem ’A Last Message: ‘For what you love is not my mortal frame; I would not be confused with a corpse; O! let not, then, a corpse assume my name!’

Perhaps it is a good thing that Eglantyne held this attitude, because her corpse has had several close encounters with disinternment. In 1990 some oversight meant that the lease on her grave was not renewed, and somebody else was nearly allocated her plot at St George’s. Only the quick work of a concerned visitor alerted Save the Children to the situation, and the lease was renewed in time. Perhaps it was a twenty-year arrangement, as earlier this year the cemetery again got in touch with Save the Children, letting them know that the rights granted to her gravestone were again about to expire. Very sensibly Save the Children wrote to the Jebb family, and after six months of talks the Executive Council of the City of Geneva have just agreed to maintain Eglantyne’s grave for an indefinite period and at no cost, in acknowledgement of the fundamental role Eglantyne played in the recognition and promotion of children’s rights. Wonderful. Huge sighs of relief all round; ‘the news was like a blast of warm sunshine on what was a cold, wet and windy day’ Lionel Jebb wrote in response.

What would Eglantyne have made of all this fuss? I think she would be laughing, and probably from up on the mountain, not down in the cemetery.

'Cabbages, cherries and a new biography as featured on Women's Hour...'

Sunday 14 June 2009

This Saturday I got my first taste of spruiking. I always have books to sign and sell after giving a talk, but this was different; the real hard-core ‘roll up, roll up ladies pll-llease… I have cabbages, I have cherries, I have a new biography as featured on Women’s Hour…’ in the front of a Waterstones shop in Bury St Edmunds.

It is a pretty daunting task calling out your wares in a busy bookshop I can tell you, but I quickly learned from experience what does and doesn’t work. A polite, ‘a bit of social history this morning, sir?’ for example had minimal effect, although it did send one man rather rapidly back out of the shop (sorry Waterstones!) A well-timed mention of Women’s Hour, Jenni Murray or Paul O’Grady (who gave me a cover quote) however proved much more productive. ‘She rode bicycles too’ even netted one sale from a nice man in tight lycra… It is amazing how easy it is to get into role once you’re on a roll, and what started out as terrifying soon became a laugh as lots of people stopped for a chat, so at least I didn’t feel like Mulley-no-mates.

Most of the people who bought a copy of the biography were just browsing, a few said that they had heard of the book - or that they had heard me on Women’s Hour (no, not just women), and two had come in specifically to buy a copy.  But two incidents particularly touched me - one was when a young girl, perhaps 10, who was out with her nan to find a present for her mum, thought that the book would be perfect. But the £18.99 was clearly above budget. ‘What a shame’, nan said, ‘never mind’. But the girl insisted, and spent all her savings - so I do hope, Shelly, that you enjoy it! The other was when a woman I had been talking to said she was actually not earning because she was disabled, so she couldn’t possibly afford it - but then insisted on giving me a donation for Save the Children anyhow. Aren’t people wonderful!

So thank you, Bury St Edmunds Waterstones punters; my scary pile of books pretty quickly sold out and I was almost disappointed that my spruiking career had come to a close. Unless any other Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Borders… fancies a hosting a ‘Meet the Author’ morning??

Optical Research

Wednesday 10 June 2009

I am a very nosy person. What could be a more legitimate excuse for delving into the fascinating life, letters, unpublished novels, houses, bottom drawers, last will and testament… of someone who intrigues you, than writing their biography? Aware of the potentially invasive nature of the role, I once described it as psycho-stalking, and was duly ticked off by a more established writer. The thing is that while remaining respectful, you have to find out everything possible about your subject. Sometimes this does involve, if not stalking the person, certainly following in their footsteps by visiting all the places that had meaning for them. Antonia Fraser coined the rather more professional-sounding term ‘optical research’ for this activity, and it was a type of research I threw myself into it.

Researching Eglantyne I visited her Shropshire family home, The Lyth, several times, once even staying in the nursery where she would have slept as a child. It was easy to picture her hurrying out of the floor-length windows when dull visitors called, and dragging her magazines up the yew trees for a moment to read in peace. I also went to her Oxford college, Lady Margaret Hall, and I produced a mini-Eglantyne tour of Cambridge where she lived for several years, taking in the possible sites for her house as well as relevant colleges, friends houses, her charities office, and the ‘darkenning marshes’ where she once considered ‘drowning her grief’ after the man of her affections proposed to another. Six-months pregnant I even made it to  the top of Mount Saleve outside Geneva, albeit taking the cable-car most of the way, where it snowed down on me and over the view that Eglantyne loved so much, and had breathed in while drafting her statement of children’s human rights. Wonderful.

It is easy to criticise such visits as a desperate attempt to get some affinity with your subject, during which imagination, dare I say invention, is required to get any return… but that would be wrong. For me it was hugely valuable to share a view with Eglantyne however I could, and what I gained was more than an insight into mood. I saw thousand tiny clues as to where she gained her inspiration, from the pretentious wallpaper that she laughed at in her novels, to the claustrophobia in her tiny charity office and her need for ‘the great open spaces’ that helped to clear her mind.

This week I was invited to give a talk for Save the Children’s Marlborough and Pewsey branch, and I was particularly delighted as Marlborough - where Eglantyne taught for one difficult year - was the one main place I had somehow failed to get to when writing the book. It was great to see ‘The Woman Who Saved the Children’ on order at the district library now housed in Eglantyne’s former school - but a bit of a surprise to see a blue plaque to Eglantyne on the outside of the building. I had not known that she was honoured here, and since my last chapter which looks at Eglantyne’s death and memorials is called ‘Blue Plaques’ I have quickly asked the publisher for an ammendment to include this in any future reprints! For anyone with the first edition, yours will be unique!

So ‘optical research’ has proved its worth again, and I have learned that you don’t have to stalk someone, even post-mortem, to produce a good biography, but you really do have to retrace their steps in the most literal sense, to gain the fullest picture.

Women in History

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Having researched, written and launched the book I am now in the middle of what is apparently the author’s main job - promoting the thing. For me this mostly entails giving a number of talks, including a few for Waterstones bookshops where I speak as part of a panel talking about ‘Women in History’. Inevitably the British historian and TV broadcaster David Starkey comes in for some short sharp critisim during the intro to these events, as earlier this year he very publicly took to task what he called ‘feminised history’, claiming that ‘if you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players and to pretend anything else is to falsify’. Thank you David Starkey, and that will be the same Starkey who is the author of ‘Elizabeth: Apprenticeship’, ‘Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne’ and ‘Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII’…

Eglantyne out of the history books since 1967

This has made me question why it is that there has not been another biography of Eglantyne since 1967 when the wonderfully titled ‘Rebel Daughter of a Country House’ was published. Partly I guess Eglantyne has just not fitted well with academic and broadcasting trends. She is clearly not a ‘great man’ of the type so favoured by David Starkey, but neither is she an obvious choice for the main critics of this narrow approach. As a representative of the priviledged elite she might not appeal to Marxist historians for example, and feminist historians researching the hidden history of women in the private and public spheres might also not be drawn to a woman whose public vocation was focused around children.

Female pioneers have often exploited maternal rhetoric to promote their own causes

Interestingly, notions of femininity and in particular motherhood have not only historically been used to contain women’s interests and demands, but have also offered women opportunities for social action. Many female social pioneers more famous than Eglantyne exploited maternal rhetoric to promote their causes. Even Florence Nightingale, not an obviously maternal woman, referred to the soldiers of the Crimea as her sons; once writing for example ‘oh my poor men: I am a bad mother to come home and leave you in your Crimean graves’. How much Nightingale was motivated by frustrated maternal impulse, and how much she was exploiting the loaded language of maternalism, is debatable. Interestingly though, most British domestic children’s charities were established by rather sentimental - could we say maternal - men; including the Foundling Hospital, Barnardos, NCH, the Children’s Society, and the NSPCC, while most high achieving female social activists seemed to focus on anything else from prison to hospital reform.

Eglantyne was not herself beyond using emotive calls to women, mothers and others, to promote Save the Children, but privately she made her feelings quite clear. ‘I suppose it is a judgement on me, for not caring about children, that I am made to talk all day long about the universal love of humanity towards them’ she wrote to a friend after launching the Fund in 1919! Eglantyne was not motivated by maternal or overtly sentimental feeling towards individual children, but by a passionate humanitarian impulse to help children as people, and as the next generation of citizens, irrespective or gender, race, faith or anything else. Her achievement in putting the welfare and human rights of the world’s children on the international agenda is powerful testament to this humanitarian spirit, and it is this complexity and all inclusive humanity that makes her story both so hugely important, and so very interesting. This is not ‘feminised history’, this is social history at its best!

Launched

Wednesday 27 May 2009

19 May being the 90th anniversary of Save the Children, it also seemed an auspicious day to launch the book. Save UK’s Vice President, Gordon Campbell Gray, who also happens to own One Aldwych among a collection of small-but-perfectly-formed hotels around the world, very generously provided the venue, drinks and eats, and some fabulous flowers left over from a visit by Bill Clinton set the room off perfectly. Eglantyne was done proud, while her waste-not-want-not was also appeased. Likewise it was a small but appropriate guest list. Save the Children Trustee Alex Duncan hosted, on behalf of the Fund, among others several press and potential book reviewers, some fabulous supporters of the Fund (including one who had volunteered for over 50 years!), my editors in chief (my publisher and my sister), and a fitting collection of Jebbs and Buxtons, many of whom had been extremly supportive throughout the research and writing process.

Given Eglantyne’s love of the absurd and incongruous, it was also an appropriately surreal evening. My sister arrived looking rather lop-sided, having hastily shoved her going-out shoes in her bag that morning only to find one high-heel and one flat when getting ready for the party. My determindly atheist husband struggled somewhat making polite-chat with the woman from Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday programme, and my talk was interrupted when I was heckled by my own phone… But the real comedy moment came afterwards when heading for a drink with Rosie Shannon (Save the Children’s Head of PR), Francesca Buxton (Eglantyne’s great great niece), my husband and my sister, and we found ourselves at a cabaret night in a bar in a nearby converted public toilet. It’s true! It was however the perfect creative planning venue - we have now decided that Eglantyne’s life really ought to be made into a film (starring who? Cate Blanchett, Renee Zellweger, all suggestions welcome - and even more if you can name and introduce the backers); that there should be a version of Eglantyne’s story written for children and young people (watch this space SCF schools programme coordinators); and that the current book really should be reviewed in the Times (look out for it this Sunday, fingers crossed…)

All in the anniversary felt appropriately marked and the book well and truly launched - thank you very much to everyone who helped to make it happen. But what touched me most was that the last person to buy a book on the evening wasn’t one of the guests at all, but one of the hotel staff who had been coming in and out to look after us at One Aldwych… as ever, Eglantyne appeals to everyone!

Anniversary Celebrations

Wednesday 20 May 2009

90 years ago this week Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy launched a new fund to help provide milk and aid to the children in Europe who were starving to death - 800 a day in Germany - as a result of the post-war British economic blockade.

Eglantyne had been arrested in Trafalgar Square a few weeks earlier for distributing leaflets that had not been cleared by the government censors, like the one in my first blog, to raise public awareness about the European famine. She had insisted on conducting her own case at her trial, sensibly focusing on the moral arguments. Technically found guilty, she was fined just £5, ‘which’, she wrote to her mother, ’is equivalent to victory’.

Her next letter went to the papers, and by the following day she had gained coverage in five nationals. Building on this publicity Eglantyne and Dorothy decided to call a public famine meeting. Although nervous about the response they might get, the sisters were also ambitious, and decided to book the Royal Albert Hall. In the event there were not enough seats for the crowd that arrived - although unfortunately many had come with rotten fruit to throw at the traitors who wanted to give succour to the ‘enemy’. Eglantyne was a nervous public speaker, but her voice rose with passion as she went on - until she was demanding ’surely it is impossible for us, as normal human beings, to watch children starve to death without making an effort to save them’. The crowd began to applaud. Within ten days £10,000 had been donated which went to provide sustainable relief through the delivery of Swiss dairy cows to Vienna.

This meeting happened yesterday - 90 years ago. And yesterday I was delighted to be invited down to talk to staff at Save the Children in London about the history of this wonderful organisation. Afterwards some of them cornered me and made me talk to tape - if you missed the talk you can see the video on this YouTube

Thank you very much for inviting me in, and thank you very much for all the inspiring work that everyone who works at Save the Children, or supports Save the Children does, to make sure that children still receive relief in emergencies - irrespective of their race, faith, politics or anything else. It is a privilege to be involved!

Amazon addiction

Friday 1 May 2009

Oh dear, I have found a new way to delay doing any work… checking the online Amazon sales ranking of my biography of Eglantyne Jebb - SCF’s founder. The ranking is a kind of scary irregular pulse that tells you how any book is selling compared to all the rest in Amazon’s warehouse on an hour-by-hour basis.

Before the book was published it had a static ranking of 500,000 or so. Last week things started to move; a full page article in the Daily Mail with a very nice pic of young Eglantyne brought me up sharp to 4,102nd place. To be honest I have no idea if that is good or bad or utterly meaningless, but it seems quite a leap.

Reviews in the Sunday Times, Church Times and a few other places kept things interesting, and then yesterday I was interviewed on BBC Radio Four’s ‘Women’s Hour’. Excited and terrified, I hung about listening to the show and watching the clock in the waiting room until my allocated 8 minute slot towards the end of the programme approached - then I nearly missed it with an ill-timed trip to the loo followed by a wrong turn into the wrong lobby… fortunately I was rescued and ushered into the recording room where Jenni Murray gave me a huge smile and counted down to ‘live on air’… 8 minutes never went so fast! At the end she thanked me and I thanked her, and we sat there a while, cosily listening to the pre-recorded play that came on next, until she politely smiled again and said ‘you know, you can go now…’

I think it went ok - you can have a listen on iPlayer if you want to and click on ‘listen again’. Certainly my Amazon ranking shot right up - by the end of the day the book was up to number 2,459 in their overall sales, and was 7th biggest seller in biography/women, and 15th in biography/history - happily rubbing shoulders with Mandela and Darwin! So hopefully it’s raising some decent funds for SCF… and it’s nice to know that Eglantyne can still raise a strong pulse… even 80 years after she died.

Publication eve

Thursday 23 April 2009

So seven years after I first got interested in Eglantyne the book is due to be published - tomorrow!

I am of course extremely excited and rather nervous. My mother has rather sweetly just sent me a card congratulating me on the imminent birth of my fourth child - and in some ways it has felt like a rather long labour and at times painful delivery! In fact the producing the book has often made me think about my own experience as a mother - I promise not to get too far fetched here, but I have not been unaware of the ironies involved in sneaking away from my own childcare time to write the life of a woman who had no kids of her own but dedicated her life to championing child welfare - from a strategic distance. Eglantyne’s own lack of maternal sentiment is one of the many intriguing things about her, I even ended up calling one early chapter, when she taught in a working class school for a short while, ‘Testing the maternal impulse’.

Meanwhile I found out I was pregnant with my third daughter the week I got a publishing deal, and nine months later I spent many hours typing away on the last few chapters with my beautiful baby on my lap either sleeping or feeding. I got very good a typing with one hand.

And now here we are on the eve of publication - it is not the same as having a child of course, nothing like, but I do feel like I am losing protective control of this long nurtured thing and sending it off out there on its independent shelf-life. Death of an author, birth of a book…

Psycho-stalking Eglantyne Jebb - part two

Wednesday 25 March 2009

As I started my research the residue evidence of Eglantyne’s life got more and more intriguing. Eglantyne had no children of her own but the granchildren of her elder brother still live at The Lyth, the magnificent Shropshire home in which Eglantyne grew up. Lionel Jebb and his wife Corinna were wonderfully supportive during my research, inviting me to stay with them - I slept in Eglantyne’s old nursery room - and generally giving me a free hand to plough through their boxes of papers and family albums.

Here were her childhood diaries, bunches of illustrated letters to remote aunts, and most excitingly piles of torrid love letters, tied in neat bunches and stashed in a box… Visits to the families of other relatives and friends were equally revealing. Her younger sister Dorothy’s grandson, Ben Buxton, was an archeology lecturer and had an instinctive understanding of my need for evidence - and once gave me an aging manilla envelope out of which I pulled a still bright red curl of Eglantyne’s baby-hair; real DNA, that was quite odd! Later I ate from Eglantyne’s plates, put flowers on her grave, and I even bought my own copy of the signature I had seen so often on letters in archives, when it popped up on eBay.

Sometimes it felt slightly uncomfortable opening Eglantyne’s private letters and diaries, and I used to think of my research as sort of psycho-stalking her, although only with the best intentions.  However once, when I had come to a dead-end when trying to unravel Eglantyne’s doomed love affair with a Cambridge don, Marcus Dimsdale, I found myself by coincidence having a drink with a friend of this man’s family. Just two weeks later I was sitting down to dinner with Robert and Nicholas Dimsdale, Marcus’s grandson and great nephew, and learning all about the other perspective on this romance… for once I had the uncanny feeling that it was perhaps the ghosts who were stalking me!

All in I loved researching the book. I am a very nosey person anyhow which helps, but Eglantyne’s life had so many intriguing stories and half-hidden traits that it was a joy to tease the truths out. I hope the result is worth this wonderful subject! Finally do comment on my blog and let me know if you have any thoughts or questions about Eglantyne and her life, or the process of writing a biography. Also I have a number of book talks coming up around Britain so do please come along to hear me - details under events on my website.

Psycho-stalking Eglantyne Jebb

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Hello - I have just been planning my first public talk about the book and someone told me that people are generally much more interested in what goes on behind the scenes in writing a biography, than your actual subject… I hope there is some truth in this because my biography of Eglantyne wears its research on its sleeve a bit - that is to say I feature marginally in the book, especially at the start and end, and popping up occassionally when I needed to change the pace of the read - the result is you get to hear a little about my research as I did it. I wouldn’t have written it this way, of course, if I didn’t think there was a pretty good sub-plot going on there - so here is some of it…

As I said in my last blog, I first came up with the idea of writing about Eglantyne when I was a fundraiser at Save the Children in the 1990s. What really grabbed me was finding a rather crumpled leaflet down the back of a box in the old archive.

Starving Baby Leaflet

The leaflet featured a horrific photograph of a starving Austrian infant; a 2  1/2 year old whose legs look more feeble than my 13 month old baby’s do today, because her physical development had been arrested as a result of malnutrition. Pencilled in the top right-hand corner of the leaflet was the single word ’suppressed!’. This is in Eglantyne’s handwriting, neat but hurried, the exclamation mark recording her personal indignation at the British government’s decision to restrict public awareness of the human cost of their policy to continue the economic blockade to Europe after the armistice. I knew then that Eglantyne’s was going to be a gripping story.

Introducing The Woman Who Saved the Children

Friday 13 March 2009

Hello, my name is Clare Mulley and I am ‘the woman who wrote’ The Woman Who Saved the Children: A Biography of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of Save the Children, which is published on 24 April. And now - I am delighted to report - I am also a guest blogger on this website!

I first came across Eglantyne when working as a struggling corporate fundraiser at Save the Children in the 1990s. Feeling rather brow-beaten by a few unsuccessful weeks of proposal writing I found my faith in human nature restored by a reassuring line that Eglantyne had written 80 years earlier; ‘the world is not ungenerous, but unimaginative and very busy’. That’s it, exactly. I was immediately intrigued by this woman with a gift for one-liners, but far too busy to do anything much about it. Then when I left Save the Children to have my first daughter - thereby showing far less commitment to the organisation than Eglantyne who never had children - I took the opportunity to have a quick root about in Save the Children’s archives. There among the piles of files and shelves of gifts to HRH, was Eglantyne’s Smith Corona Portable typewriter, ’such a bad one’ she had once moaned, some personal letters between her and her college friends, and a rather crumpled leaflet headed ‘A Starving Baby’ above a photograph of an Austrian child: a young girl whose physical development had been arrested as a result of malnutrition. Marked in pencil, in the top right hand corner, was the single word ’suppressed!’. I knew then that I was onto a good story…

It amazes me that so little has been written about Eglantyne, she is a gem of a subject who not only founded Save the Children with her sister Dorothy in 1919, but went on to establish the Save the Children International Union the following year, save the lives of thousands of children, pioneer modern fundraising, redefine how child welfare operates, influence the direction and operations of the fledgling League of Nations and write social policy of permanent world significance with her pioneering statement of children’s human rights which has since evolved into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - the most widely accepted human rights instrument in history. All in an era before women had the vote, and from a woman who - I discovered to my delight - claimed she did not care for children!

Biography should be more than just an assemblage of facts, it needs some degree of creative empathy to bring these facts to life. And for me what made Eglantyne so interesting as I pieced her story together was not just her amazing achievements, but her strikingly eccentric and passionate personality - not just her doing, but her being. Why ‘Save the Children’ if she was not fond of them? An intelligent and strikingly beautiful woman why did she never marry? Were her regular illnesses, her emotional highs and lows, and vivid imagination, in any way linked? Why did she always seem to wear such dour clothes, and what, exactly, was going on in her head?

I hope that you might be interested enough in Eglantyne to get a copy of the book* - all royalties are being donated to Save the Children so there are very few excuses! But I will also endeavour to try to bring Eglantyne a little bit to life through this blog, as well as talk about what it was like to research and write the book - and when it comes out I hope to talk a little about that too! In the meantime if you have anything you’d like me to look at please just let me know on these pages!