Charlotte Toynbee

Charlotte Maria Toynbee, born Charlotte Maria Atwood (30 March 1841 – 8 January 1931) was a British college administrator and local government official. The Toynbee Building at Lady Margaret Hall recognises her contribution to women's education at Oxford.

Life Toynbee was born in Muswell Hill, Buckinghamshire in 1841. Her parents were Charlotte Maria (born Hodgskins) and William Atwood. Her father was a linguist working abroad so consequentially she spent a lot of time out of the country gaining her education in French schools until her family returned to the UK. Her Anglican and Liberal family then lived in Wimbledon and she went to school in London. She spoke slowly and kindly, but she was said to have a commanding voice.

When she was 32 she married a man who was eleven years younger than her who she had known for six years. She had been initially attracted to Arnold Toynbee by his ideas. In 1884, she and her mother moved into a new house and she and Alfred Milner edited her husband's Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England. She also served on the committee aiming to create a settlement in Oxford, the result, Toynbee Hall, was named for her husband.

Toynbee served as Poor Law Guardian for thirty years as part of a system which she wanted replaced. She said that it was impossible to judge the level of help that the poor needed and it was demeaning for them to ask for small sums. She wanted to see the system replaced with pensions and other improvements. which was overcrowded decades before. Toynbee Building was a listed building in 1954.