Clare Mulley 2009 on 'The Woman Who Saved the Children'

Every so often I wonder how these big charities that do so much work came into being - well earlier this year award winning biographer Clare Mulley's book 'The Woman Who Saved the Children' was sent to me. It was the biography of Eglantyne Jebb who with her sister Dorothy founded the charity 'Save the Children' - of course I was utterly fascinated and emailed Clare a few questions about Eglantyne which she has answered indepth.

VW: What inspired you to write about Eglantyne Jebb?

CM: I first came accross Eglantyne when working as a rather struggling corporate fundraiser at Save the Children, the charity she had founded 80 years before, and I read a line of hers that struck a chord - 'the world is not ungenerous, but unimaginative and very busy'. It amazed me how true this still was, and I became quite intrigued about this woman who had achieved so much but was so little known. When I went on maternity leave soon later (thereby showing far less commitment to the cause than Eglantyne, who never had children, and dedicated herself to promoting children's wellbeing until her early death in 1928) I thought I'd have a quick snoop in the charity's archives. There I found a horrific leaflet showing a photograph of a starving Austrian baby that Eglantyne had been arrested for distributing around Trafalgar Square in 1919, without the permission of the government censors. In the top right hand corner of the leaflet she had pencilled the word 'suppressed!' - I knew then I was on to a good story...

VW: Do you think the death of her brother Gamul affected many of her decisions later in life?

CM: It definitely changed her perspective... Eglantyne had been having a ball as a beautiful young Oxford student when the sudden news of her brilliant younger brother's death reached her. She returned to college greatly changed... Eglantyne had been very close to her brother and his death haunted her for the rest of her life. In a way he seemed to become a sort of tragic Peter Pan - a symbol both of the value and potential of youth, and of her own commitment to live a life of social worth.

VW: At university she was able to explore her spirituality - do you think this helped her in making humanitarian decisions later in life?

CM: Eglantyne certainly developed a very personal, spiritual, Christianity which gave her great strength throughout her life, and as her thoughts on her faith developed they were mirrored in her social philosophy. Ill health and failed love affairs gave her plenty of time to dwell on these ideas and she came up with the fascinating belief that people are born into seperation in our material world, but on dying return into a kind of spiritual oneness at a higher level. This duality of individuality and universalism is reflected in her concept of all children having individual human rights for example.

VW: After university Eglantyne was very aware that she had to do something more - why did she go into teaching when she didn't really like children?

CM: I love the fact that Eglantyne was not fond of children, 'the dreadful wretches' as she once called them. At college she had become interested in education and citizenship, and she saw teaching in a working-class school as a practical way to make a valuable contribution here. She quickly realised that she was not cut out for teaching though, later writing that 'the dreaful idea of closer aquaintance (with children) never entered my head'.

VW: Why is it that while Eglantyne was able to form intense relationships she was then abandoned when they married other people and what was the effect on her?

CM: Eglantyne was not being regularly being abandonned, she had many close friendships that were a great strength to her throughout her life. However it is true that the two great loves of her life, a handsome don with whom she went horseriding round Cambridgeshire, and the beautiful younger sister of the economist John Maynard Keynes, who was once described as having 'the look of a dark angel' both married others. But if I gave you the whole story here it would ruin two chapters of the book!

VW: During these times she wrote poetry and unpublished novels and sketched - why did she not publish them?

CM: Eglantyne did try to secure publication for her social novels, as they were essentially written to highlight the ills of Edwardian society to her readers, with a bit of romance thrown in to sugar-coat them. Her mother liked them, but publishers thought they needed serious editing and Eglantyne refused. Having read the manuscript of her main novel I tend to agree with the publisher - but although a well edited version might have made a better book, the unaltered manuscript gives a fabulous insight into Eglantyne's character! However two volumes of her poems were published - one the year before she died and one later by her sister.

VW: While Eglantyne was not into children what was it about Eastern Europe and Germany that caused her to want to save children rather than stay divorced from the suffering?

CM: Eglantyne found individual children loud, tiring and stressful, but that did not mean she was not shocked by the suffering of the children starving in Europe. 'Surely it is impossible for us, as normal human beings, to watch children starve to death, without making an effort to save them?' she said at the Fund's launch in 1919. There were other reasons too for prioritising the relief of children, which show that Eglantyne was both well informed about child development, and very savvy about marketing!

VW: She was quite a rebel to the point of being arrested for handing out leaflets about the starving children - what moved her to do this?

CM: The story of Eglantyne's public arrest in Trafalgar Square, her sensational trial, and the subsequent founding of Save the Children is really inspiring. She was not naturally a rebel in many ways, but once she had decided on the morally correct path, nothing would prevent her from following it - it is a good thing she had a very human sense of humour that in the words of one friend saved her 'from the kind of philanthropicalness of most good ladies'.

VW: Her sisters were very much a part of what she did - was this support important to her or could she have done the work without them?

CM: Eglantyne was very close to her sisters, all of whom supported each other throughout their lives. However she was closest to Dorothy, her younger sister, with whom she shared a keen sense of personal social responsibility. When Eglantyne was very ill and depressed during what was known, for a while, as the Great War, it was Dorothy who took the lead and gave Eglantyne a cause to join when she recovered. Dorothy co-founded Save the Children with Eglantyne in 1919 and although she soon handed over the reigns completely to her older sister who made the organisation what it is today, Dorothy's early input had been crucial.

VW: Why was society so adamant that the Save the Children was lying about the starving children?

CM: You must imagine living in England just a few months after the end of the First World War. Millions of young men have been killed or died of disease while fighting the enemy. Everyone at home has lost someone; fathers, brothers, husbands, friends. The Germans and Austrians have been demonised as cruel and inhumane by the British press for years. War rationing continues and the war has highlighted great poverty at home. No one wants to focus on the needs of countries oversees, and least of all those so recently at war with us. The talk is of how to exact war reparations from these countries, and how to prevent their rising up in war again, not of shipping out aid to them when there is so much obvious need at home.

VW: Eglantyne was a wonderful motivator how did she cope with her illnesses and carry out her work?

CM: Eglantyne was inspired by her great faith and the hope of preventing more suffering like that she had witnessed, and she was kept on track by sheer determination, her rather wicked sense of humour, and the generous support of so many people around her. Of course she did not always cope - she had many interesting relapses and she did die young, at only 52 - but her determination to live a life of real value is hugely powerful.

VW: What was it about her that inspired the people who worked with her?

CM: I think it was a combination of her burning passion for her work, and her very grounded sense of humour. She has an amazing ability to catch people's imagination, enabling them both to empathise with the human issue and inspiring them to believe that they could contribute personally to a meaningful solution. And people from the Pope to the miners, from the Bolshevik government in Russia to the fledgling League of Nations in Geneva, did go to huge lengths to support her cause and enable her work to continue.

VW: Once the Save the Children charity was formed why did she then go onto the Rights of Children as a part of the charity?

CM: Eglantyne was not content with saving the lives and improving the life chances of millions of children within her own lifetime. She was living in a period of both great fear and great optimism after the war, when many people believed that international society had to be changed permanently so that the world would never witness the destruction of lives on that scale again. Her pioneering statement of all individual children's universal rights was designed to change the way that the world regards and treats children, both to serve the interests of all children, and of society as a whole. This statement, which is completely independent to the work of Save the Children, has since evolved into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history.

VW: Even in Eglantyne's time Save the Children was pretty much global how do think her work effected life in today's society?

CM: Today Save the Children saves the lives of millions of children, and improves the life chances and the quality of life for many millions more, accross the globe, including in the UK. It is a wonderful and awe inspiring organisation. Furthermore the UN CRC has had massive impact on the relationship between our generations, and the way in which children are seen and treated. Of course the work is not done, but as Eglantyne once said to nay sayers: 'Clearly there is no inherent impossibility in saving the children of the world. It is only impossible if we make it so by our refusal to attempt it.'

VW: In today's society do you think the Save the Children would have been formed in the same way?

CM: I don't know. However Save the Children is extremely effective, so I expect that the end result would look pretty similar.

VW: You did a lot of the research when you were pregnant with your first child - did Eglantyne's story effect you especially as she had difficulties in relating to children?

CM: Researching and writing this book over the last seven years (!) has given me a wonderful project to work on while raising my children. I was not unaware of the irony of buying-in a bit of childcare to enable me to focus on researching the life of this champion of children's welfare, nor of the fact that unlike me, Eglantyne, who devoted her life to children's wellbeing, had no children of her own nor real interest in or affection for most of the individual children that she knew. In some ways I identified with Eglantyne, in many others I did not. I do not think that maternalism is a pre-requisite for caring about children's wellbeing, or that good mothering precludes having other interests and activities. But most of all I like the fact that Eglantyne was seemingly contrary in some ways and certainly independent-minded. People are complex, that is why they are interesting.

VW: Eglantyne was a very complex personality do you think she could have done anything else other than what she did in Saving the Children and very shamelessly promoting it in every which way - at times making her already fragile health worse?

CM: Eglantyne was a very talented and able person, and could have achieved a lot in whatever arena she chose. That she put her passion for her cause above considerations of her own health was of course a choice, and one taken very consciously. She knew that her strenuous workload was ecascerbating her ill-health, but as she once told a friend she found that 'in idleness it is impossible to be happy'. She also once wrote that 'to succeed in life, you must give life'. She chose to give life through the foundation and promotion of Save the Children, and in her own terms her life was very much a success.

VW: Will you write another biography soon?

CM: I hope to, and have a few fascinating and surprisingly little-known subjects in mind...

VW: Who are your writing heroes who inspire you?

CM: Biographers such as Claire Tomalin, Hermione Lee and Richard Holmes, and Alexander Masters who wrote so powerfully and innovatively about Stuart Shorter in Stuart: A Life Backwards a few years ago; a book that everyone should read.