Janet Quigley

Janet Muriel Alexander Quigley MBE (10 May 1902 – 7 February 1987) was a British radio broadcaster associated with the Today programme and Woman's Hour.

Early life Quigley was born in Belfast in 1902, in the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. She grew up at 48 Ulsterville Avenue in Belfast. She was educated at a school which merged with Victoria College, Belfast in 1988. Nesca Robb was three years below.

She went to college in Oxford, England, at Lady Margaret Hall. In 1937 she was the producer of Week in Westminster.

She contacted Clemence Dane and asked her to contribute to her Sunday morning series, which she did, and later Quigley invited her on Woman's Hour. She contacted Donald Winnicott who had worked with Clare Britton, a psychiatric social worker treating children who had become evacuees. His first series of talks in 1943 was titled "Happy Children", Quigley offered him total control over the content of his talks but this soon became more consultative as Quigley advised him on the correct pitch.

Woman's Hour The BBC flagship radio programme Woman's Hour had been created by Norman Collins and was first broadcast on 7 October 1946 on the BBC Light Programme. Despite this, Quigley has been credited with "virtually creating" the programme even though she did not become its editor until 1950.

Quigley believed that "hush-hush" subjects should be discussed openly as an example to the "less educated" to show that they were not taboo.

She was replaced as Editor of Woman's Hour in March 1956 by 35-year-old Miss Joanna Scott-Moncrieff (7 September 1920 - 28 December 1978), the deputy editor. Miss Scott-Moncrieff moved to religious programmes in August 1964.

BBC executive Quigley joined BBC management in 1956

Quigley retired from the BBC in 1962 but she continued to do work for Woman's Hour. In time, the programme broadcast twenty books that she had edited so that they could be serialised. , who gave talks for the BBC as well as being an Irish businessman and thriller writer. He and Quigley went to live in Ireland where she became a step mother to her husband's daughter.