Wilhelmine Margaret Eve "Billa" Harrod (''née'' Cresswell, 1 December 1911 – 9 May 2005), was a British writer and architectural conservationist, best known for saving the mediaeval churches of Norwich, and the wife of the economist

Sir Roy Harrod Sir Henry Roy Forbes Harrod (13 February 1900 – 8 March 1978) was an English economist. He is best known for writing ''The Life of John Maynard Keynes'' (1951) and for the development of the Harrod–Domar model, which he and Evsey Domar devel ...

Early life

She was born Wilhelmine Margaret Eve Cresswell on 1 December 1911 at

New Hunstanton Hunstanton () is a seaside resort, seaside town in Norfolk, England, which had a population of 4,229 at the 2011 Census. It faces west across The Wash, making it one of the few places on the east coast of Great Britain where the sun sets over t ...

Snettisham Snettisham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located near the west coast of Norfolk, some south of the seaside resort of Hunstanton, north of the town of King's Lynn and northwest of the city of Norwic ...

, Norfolk, the daughter of Lieutenant (later Captain) Francis Joseph Cresswell (died 1914) of the

Norfolk Regiment The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

and his wife, Barbara Cresswell, née ffolkes (1884–1977). She was related to several Quaker gentry families, including the Gurneys. Her father was killed in action at

Mons Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. T ...

not long after the beginning of the First World War, aged 31. Her mother remarried in 1918, General Sir Peter Strickland (1869–1951). She had a sister, Puffin, and they grew up in Egypt, where their stepfather was the Commander-in-Chief of British forces.

Career

From the 1930s, she lived between Norfolk and London, where she had a flat in

Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. The area has its roots ...

with her sister Puffin and worked for the

Georgian Group The Georgian Group is a British Charitable organization, charity, and the national authority on Georgian architecture built between 1700 and 1837 in England and Wales. As one of the Amenity society, National Amenity Societies, The Georgian G ...

. After marrying the economist

in 1938, she moved to Oxford, where he was an academic, and where she became friends with

John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...

(to whom she had been briefly engaged in the early 1930s) and his wife

Penelope Chetwode Penelope Valentine Hester Chetwode, Lady Betjeman (14 February 1910 – 11 April 1986) was an English travel writer. She was the only daughter of Field Marshal Philip Chetwode, 1st Baron Chetwode, Lord Chetwode, and the wife of poet laureate Sir J ...

, amongst others. In 1957, Harrod and her co-writer

Charles Linnel Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

published the ''Shell Guide To Norfolk''. As part of the process, she became aware of the poor condition of many of Norfolk's churches. In 1970, 32 of Norwich's medieval churches were being considered for demolition, and with the help of Sir John Betjeman, she was able to save them, and then focused on rural churches in the county, becoming the founding chairman of the Norfolk Society Committee for Country Churches, which became the

Norfolk Churches Trust Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

, with Harrod as the founder, chairman and president. She was appointed an OBE in 1992.

Personal life

She married

in 1938. One of their sons was

Dominick Harrod Dominick Roy Harrod (21 August 1940 – 4 August 2013) was a British journalist and broadcaster. He was the BBC's economic correspondent in the 1970s and 1980s. Early life Born in Oxford, his parents were Roy Harrod, Sir Roy Harrod, the econ ...

, economics correspondent for the BBC. She was widowed in 1978.P. M. Oppenheimer, ‘Harrod, Sir (Henry) Roy Forbes (1900–1978)’, in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Later life

She died on 9 May 2005 at her home, the Old Rectory,

Holt Holt or holte may refer to: Natural world *Holt (den), an otter den * Holt, an area of woodland Places Australia * Holt, Australian Capital Territory * Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...

, Norfolk.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrod, Wilhelmine Margaret Eve 1911 births 2005 deaths People from Holt, Norfolk Architectural conservation