Lidderdale , Jane , 1909-1996 , civil servant and writer

Jane Lidderdale (1909-1996) was born in Hampstead in Jul 1909, the granddaughter of the painter C S Lidderdale. She was educated at the Society for Home Students (later St Anne's College), Oxford, where she studied PPE. After briefly working at the Royal Institute of British Architects, she moved to the Ministry of Shipping in 1940 where she became the secretary to a number of cabinet committees during the Second World War and its aftermath. She was appointed secretary to the Fuel Committee during the crisis of the winter 1946-7 and went on to work closely with Herbert Morrison during the organisation of the Festival of Britain which took place in 1951, for which she was awarded the OBE the following year. She was then appointed secretary and head researcher for the Nathan Report on Trust Law in 1952 before leaving the Civil Service the following year. After her withdrawal from the service, Lidderdale opened Ray House with Rachel Alexander to provide care for older women. She went on to help found the Kensington Day Centre in 1963 and remained its chair until 1988. She also became involved with the Byham Shaw School of Painting and Drawing in this period and was elected to its council of management in 1961, becoming its Chair nine years later. In 1962 she became one of the guardians of James Joyce's daughter Lucia. Her connection with the Modernists was emphasised in the 1960's when Lidderdale was invited by to write a memoir of Harriet Shaw Weaver, her own godmother and the patron of Joyce, Eliot and Pound. This was published in 1970. She died in Sep 1996.