Frances Whitehead

Frances Whitehead (27 March 1925 – 1 June 2019) was a British secretary and personal assistant who was the "right hand" of John Stott, the influential Evangelical Anglican clergyman, for 55 years.

Biography Whitehead was born on 27 March 1925 in Bovey Tracey, Devon, England. Her family had once been very wealthy, with the Whitehead family owning much of Chelsea, London. She was then educated at Malvern Girls' College, an all-girls independent boarding school in Great Malvern, Worcestershire. She served as head girl of her school house (Summerside House). Her role was as a human computer, working through equations with different variables to calculate how to hide allied aircraft from the enemy during missions. She joined the staff of All Souls' Church in 1955, and in 1956 was appointed as parish secretary by John Stott, the church's rector. As one obituary put it, "John Stott and Frances [Whitehead] ran global endeavours on a shoestring". Stott died in 2011, and Whitehead was executor of his will.