Name Ellen Pinsent Great grandchildren Simon Keynes | Occupation Mental health worker Role Richard Parker's daughter | |
Full Name Ellen Frances Parker Spouse(s) Hume Chancellor Pinsent Died 1949, Abingdon, United Kingdom Children Hester Adrian, Baroness Adrian Parents Elizabeth Coffin, Blake Parker, Richard Parker Grandchildren Richard Adrian, 2nd Baron Adrian, Jennet Adrian, Anne Adrian Similar People Blake Parker, Elizabeth Coffin, Richard Parker, Edgar Adrian | ||
Dame Ellen Frances Pinsent DBE (26 March 1866 – 1949), nee Parker, was a British mental health worker.
Contents
She was the daughter of the Rev. Richard Parker and his second wife, Elizabeth Coffin. She married Hume Chancellor Pinsent (b. 1857), a relative of the philosopher David Hume, and they had three children. Their two sons, David Hume Pinsent and Richard Parker Pinsent, were killed in the First World War, and their daughter, Hester, married the Nobel-prize winner Edgar Douglas Adrian, a peer.
Council
Pinsent was the first woman elected, on 1 November 1911, to serve on Birmingham City Council. She represented the Edgbaston Ward as a Liberal Unionist. She had earlier been co-opted as a member of the council's Education Committee and served as Chairman of the Special School Sub-Committee. She stood down from the council in October 1913 upon appointment as Commissioner for the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency.
Legacy
The Dame Ellen Pinsent Special Primary School (for children with learning disabilities) in Birmingham is named for her. Her life and work was chronicled in the book Ellen Pinsent: including the ‘feebleminded’ in Birmingham, 1900–1913.