Janet Lacey

Janet Lacey (25 October 1903 – 11 July 1988) was an English charity director and philanthropist who led the British Council Inter-Church Aid and Refugee Department (later called Christian Aid) from 1952 to 1968. She began working for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Kendal and later Dagenham from 1925 to 1945. After the Second World War, Lacey was YMCA education secretary for demobilising British Army of the Rhine soldiers in Germany and was later appointed field young secretary for the British Council of Churches in 1947. At Christian Aid, she helped the organisation refocus on global poverty and funded development projects in 40 countries. She oversaw the establishment of Christian Aid Week in 1957 and was a founder member of the Voluntary Service Overseas organisation in 1958. Lacey became the first woman to preach at St Paul's Cathedral in 1967 and later at Liverpool Cathedral and St George's Cathedral in Jerusalem. She was director of the national Family Welfare Association charity from 1969 to 1973 and wrote the 1970 autobiographical book A Cup of Water.

Early life On 25 October 1903, Lacey was born in Sunderland, and grew up there. She was the younger child and daughter of the property agent Joseph Lacey and his wife Elizabeth Smurthwaite. She had a sister who died from cancer in mid-life. her grandfather was a Methodist minister who conducted services in surrounding villages. She remained at the youth club for six years and employed her drama skills to use that got her interested in theology for the first time. Lacey moved to Dagenham in 1932, joining the staff of a mixed YWCA and YMCA community centre in a 200,000-strong housing development for those leaving the East End of London. she became YMCA education secretary to the demobilising British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), She aided in the organisation refocus on global poverty and funded development projects in 40 countries. and was part of the 1959 United Kingdom World Refugee Year Committee. In 1967, Lacey became the first woman to preach at St Paul's Cathedral and later at Liverpool Cathedral, in which she expressed her views on aid, In 1975, Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury,