Dorothy Hepburn Hardisty , née Jones (1881-1973) was an English civil servant and humanitarian. As General Secretary of the

Refugee Children's Movement The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

(RCM) from 1940 until 1948, she worked for the welfare of the Jewish child refugees who had arrived in the Kindertransport.

Life

Dorothy Hardisty was born on 4 July 1881, the daughter of Francis Jones, who taught at Manchester Grammar School, and Jessie, née Ferguson. She gained a degree at Manchester University before becoming a civil servant, eventually becoming a senior civil servant in the

Ministry of Labour The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...

. In 1940 she was appointed General Secretary of the

, responsible for ensuring that the ten thousand refugee children had homes, education, training and jobs. While she set up Regional Committees to decentralize the work, she herself kept files on every child and took personal interest in their welfare. She was awarded the

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

in 1946. Leaving the RCM in 1948, she ran the Violet Melchett Infant Welfare Clinic in Chelsea for almost twenty years, retiring aged 86.

References

1881 births 1973 deaths English humanitarians Kindertransport Alumni of the University of Manchester English civil servants {{activist-stub