Jane Nassau Senior (1828–1877) ; The First Woman in The White Hall

Senior was born Jane Elizabeth Hughes at Uffington on the 10 December 1828, the only sister of the author Thomas Hughes and six other brothers. She married Nassau John Senior on 10 August 1848 at Shaw Church. Her relief work with soldiers returning from the Franco-Prussian War led to the foundation of the National Society for Aid to Sick and Wounded in War in 1870, forerunner of the British Red Cross; and her work with impoverished children in Surrey led to her appointment in 1873, as an assistant inspector of workhouses.

She died of 'cancer of the womb' and exhaustion on 24 March 1877, aged 48; and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

Jeanie (pronounced 'Jay-nee') Senior, née Hughes, sister of Thomas Hughes, author of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays', was probably the greatest amateur singer of her day (she was selected to test the accoustics of the new Albert Hall) and was also one of the great humanitarian women of the 19th century, along with Florence Nightingale, Josephine Butler and others whose names are now sadly forgotten. Her charitable work on behalf of pauper children, friendless servant girls and others, along with the fact that she was a co-founder of the British Red Cross and the first woman to be appointed to high public office in Whitehall (i.e. central government civil service), would be enough to perpetuate her name, but the story of her life is made all the more fascinating by the remarkable number of eminent and interesting people she knew; these included George Eliot (who wrote about her), Millais (who painted her), G. F. Watts, the 'English Michelangelo' (who also painted her - and whose muse she became), Julia Margaret Cameron (who photographed her), Jenny Lind, the 'Swedish Nightingale' (who sang with her), Lord Tennyson, Florence Nightingale, Octavia Hill, co-founder of the National Trust, Prosper Mérimée, the author of Carmen (who tried to seduce her - failing miserably), and many other. 

Nonetheless, her appointment to high public office in Whitehall was fiercely resisted and her subsequent report on the education of pauper girls caused a furore and was savagely attacked in the press. She was vilified by The Times and publicly accused of lying in its correspondence columns. Her detractors, who referred to her as 'That Woman', afforded her no respite even when she was confined to her bed and dying of exhaustion and cancer. She fought the long defeat, from her bed, with the backing of Florence Nightingale, George Eliot, Octavia Hill, Lord Shaftesbury, Sir James Stansfeld and others, but 'it was too much - she fell asleep on the 24th March 1877. Sadly for the generations of pauper children concerned it was to be many years before her recommendations were implemented or another woman appointed to high public office, but her example was not forgotten, by some at least, and she became an icon for the Women's Movement during its most difficult years.