Blue Plaque for Britain's First Female Civil Servant

I was delighted to see such a large crowd at this afternoon’s unveiling of a plaque in honour of Jeanie Senior.

The FDA and the Battersea Society have jointly funded the plaque which you can find on the exterior of the Battersea Arts Centre, the site of Jeanie’s former home, Elm House on Lavender Hill.

Jeanie Nassau Senior became the first female civil servant when she was made Inspector of Workhouses. The Treasury's Permanent Secretary saw her early 1870s appointment as a very significant precedent. He noted that the appointment "opens a very large question [as] the amount of unemployed [middle/higher class] women is so great that , if anything like ladylike employment is offered, we may expect the utmost pressure to extend it ...[The] attention of the Government should, I think, be called to it"

Mrs Senior was critical of the workhouse system, and promoted what we now call fostering. Her full story - and details of her biography - may be found here.

Information about other ground-breaking female civil servants is here.

I am grateful to FDA member Bea Morgan for telling me about the unveiling - and well done to the FDA and the Battersea Society for funding it. Here’s a photo of the plaque:

Martin Stanley