Obituary, Dame Ellen Pinsent, D.B.E
Through the death on October 10th, 1949, of Dame Ellen Pinsent, the country has lost a distinguished pioneer of work for mental defectives, and one to whose inspiration and enthusiasm the development of the colony system in this country was mainly due.
Dame Ellen, who was for many years closely associated with the Central Association for Mental Welfare, was the only woman member of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feebleminded (which sat from 1904 to 1908), a tribute to her unsurpassed knowledge and experience of mental defect in all its aspects. From 1901 to 1913 she served as chairman of -the Birmingham Special Schools Sub-committee, and became an honorary commissioner of the Board of Control in 1914, later serving as a senior commissioner. She also gave valuable help as a member of the Feversham Committee on the Voluntary Mental Health Services, which was set up in 1936 and published its report in 1939.
Writing in The Times recently, Professor Gilbert Murray, O.M., refers to the rare beauty of her character and the deep sense of loss felt at her death by people of all classes at Boar’s Hill. ” She was,” he writes, ” a friend and stimulus to rich and poor, learned and unlearned, to the children and the over-eighties; all could find in her house welcome and sympathy, help if needed, and lively discussion of all subjects grave and gay, with never a harsh note. Her funeral at the little village church of Wootton had such an attendance as Wootton can rarely have seen, but one of the most remarkable sights was a great cross of flowers, made up from the little bunches picked, on their own initiative, by the children of the village school.” Dame Ellen Pinsent’s daughter, Mrs. H. A. Adrian, J.P., has continued her mother’s long association in the field of mental health, and is at present chairman of the Mental Deficiency Sub-Committee of the N.A.M.H. To her and to her family we extend our deep sympathy in their great loss.
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