Lilian Avis Scantlebury

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

born Lilian Avis Whybrow (12 January 1894 – 12 April 1964) was an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n Red Cross worker. She was one of the designers of what became the

Australian Red Cross Society The Australian Red Cross, formally the Australian Red Cross Society, is a humanitarian aid and community services charity in Australia. Tracing its history back to 1923 and being incorporated by royal charter in 1941, the Australian Red Cro ...

. They wrote letters from the Red Cross to the families of Australian soldiers. She lived at and served the development of

Janet Clarke Hall Janet Clarke Hall (JCH) is a residential college of the University of Melbourne in Australia. The college is associated with the Anglican Province of Victoria. JCH is one of the smallest of the colleges of the university and was the first univ ...

in Melbourne.

Life

Scantlebury was born in 1894 in Collingwood. Her parents were Alice Williamina Hook (born Rostron) and Arthur Whybrow. Her father made boots. She graduated from the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

after residing in what was then Trinity College Hostel and is now called

. During the first world war she went to London. In May 1916, the Australian Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau moved its headquarters from Cairo to London, after the Australian Imperial Force's attention was transferred to Europe.

Vera Deakin White Vera Deakin White (25 December 1891 – 9 August 1978) was an Australian humanitarian known for her long involvement with the Australian Red Cross. In 1915, aged 23, she established the Australian Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau to assist the ...

had started the Bureau in Cairo in 1915. and it had initially gathered information about the fates of soldiers in the Gallipoli campaign for the families of Australian soldiers. Scantlebury joined the bureau in London in 1916 and in time she led the letter section. In the following year there was 60 people working for the bureau and it moved to a larger headquarters. In three years of operation the organisation created 32,000 files for individual soldiers, and issued 400,000 responses. Deakin was made an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(OBE) in the

1918 New Year Honours The 1918 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Times'' in Ja ...

. Deakin was succeeded as head of the bureau by Scantlebury in 1919. Supported by her husband she worked to prepare the British Red Cross Australian Branch to deal with emergencies whether of natural or man-made cause. Building on her experience in the first world war the Red Cross again began letter writing. She became the director of the Victoria branch of the society. In 1948 she and Vera White were made commanders in the Order of St John. In the

1959 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1959 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced on 30 December 1958 to celeb ...

she was made an

. Scantlebury died in 1964 in

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at t ...

. She had served

from 1926 and in 1961 she joined the board after arguing for its existence in the first place as a separate organisation. After her death, a wing of Janet Clarke Hall, was named for her.

Private life

She married a physician (later surgeon) George Clifford Scantlebury in 1920 and they had a daughter.

References

External links

Biography at ADB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scantlebury, Lilian Avis 1894 births 1964 deaths People from Collingwood, Victoria Social workers Red Cross personnel Australian Officers of the Order of the British Empire Australian women of World War I