SOUTHWELL WI HISTORY
The Handford Family
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Roll of Honour Presidents of our WI
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_Excerpt from ‘Men of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’ Robert Mellors, 1924 found on the website www.nottshistory.org.uk
"HENRY HANDFORD, (b. 1855), of Nottingham and Southwell, M.D. Edin., D.P.H. Camb., F.E.C.P. Lond., was for upwards of twenty years honorary Physician to the General Hospital, Nottingham. In 1893 he was appointed the first Medical Officer of Health to the Nottinghamshire County Council, and subsequently Chief Medical Officer to the County Education Committee. On resigning in 1923 he was able to refer to the successful efforts made to preserve the underground Water Supplies of the County; to extend the treatment of Sewage, and to improve the purification of Rivers; to the persistent fall in the general Death Rate, and especially to the remarkable fall in the Infantile Mortality. This latter was mainly due to the efficient supervision of Midwives, and the steadily extending work for Child Welfare. During the same period the beds in the Tuberculosis Sanatorium have been increased from thirty to one hundred and twenty, and provision has been made for children. He retains the positions of Consulting County Medical Officer, and Honorary Consulting Physician to the General Hospital, Nottingham. THE HON. MARY E. HANDFORD, J.P., is the daughter of the first Lord Belper. She devoted her life to objects connected with social welfare, especially the needs of women and children; having been for the last twenty-eight years Chairman of the Nottingham within Union Boarding Out Committee; Chairman, (1903-1923) of the National Council of Women (Nottingham and Notts. Branch), and with their help she inaugurated a caravan tour through the whole County, with lectures showing what can be done to mitigate the dangers of infection in Tuberculosis—and another caravan tour with an Exhibition and lectures on Child Welfare; for the last seven years she has been Chairman of the Hostel for Women at 1, Robin Hood's Chase, Nottingham.
Of late her efforts have been given to the Nottinghamshire Federation of Women's Institutes, of which she is President, having started the 1st Institute in Nottinghamshire at Southwell, and there are, in 1924, Institutes in thirty villages in Nottinghamshire, and where locally maintained with vigour they are accomplishing much good." The couple were destined to lose two of two sons in the Great War; Captain Henry Basil Strutt Handford and Lieutenant Everard Francis Sale Handford both served in the 8th Sherwood Foresters and were both killed at Hohenzollern Redoubt on 15th October 1915. They also lost their son-in-law, Major John Pickard Becher, DSO. He was seriously injured in the same battle as the Handfords and died in January 1916. |
1917-1926 The Hon. Mrs Mary Handford
1927 Mrs E Merryweather 1928-1931 Mrs E A Davies 1932-33 Mrs R Arnold 1934-1938 Mrs E A Davies 1939-1945 (Meetings suspended) 1946-1948 Mrs E A Davies 1949-1953 Miss A M Dowse 1954-1956 Mrs M Heywood 1957-1959 Mrs B S Skelton 1960 Miss M McMicken, Mrs M Heywood and Mrs B S Skelton 1961-1962 Mrs D Wickham 1963-1964 Mrs A Miles 1965-1968 Mrs K Black 1969-1971 Mrs D Foulds 1972 Mrs J Wiltshire 1973-1974 Mrs B Miles 1975 Mrs M Muxworthy 1976-1978 Mrs Paula Hewitt 1979 Mrs Molly Leaver 1980-1981 Mrs Pam Benson 1982 Mrs Evelyn James 1983-1984 Mrs Glenys Booth 1985-1988 Mrs Sheila Fox 1989-1990 Miss Mary Greasley 1991-1992 Mrs Joan Madden 1993-1999 Mrs Rita Rippin 2000-2001 Mrs Jacky Toplis 2002-2005 Mrs Joan Ware 2006-2008 Mrs Carol Bristow 2009-2012 Mrs Marie Marriott 2013 -present Mrs Ann Meade |