Kathleen Halpin

Kathleen Mary Halpin OBE CBE (19 November 1903 – 4 January 1999) was a British public servant and feminist. She was involved in organisations including the British Red Cross Society, the Girl Guides Association, Order of St John, Women's Gas Council, National Society for Women's Service, Women's Voluntary Service, Soroptimist International, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association and St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

Biography Halpin was born in 1903 in Forest Hill, London, and was the eldest of four children. She was educated at Sydenham High School. Whilst at school she was involved with the British Red Cross Society, the Girl Guides Association and the Order of St John.

Halpin lived in Paris, France, for a year after leaving school, then completed secretarial training as a shorthand typist when she returned to England. She was employed as a secretary with Encyclopaedia Britannia and the Architects Journal, then worked as private secretary in the 1930s to John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon whilst he was Foreign Secretary, and his wife Kathleen Simon, Viscountess Simon. and became the council's organising secretary.

Halpin became Regional Administrator of the Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence (WVS) in the London Civil Defence Region under Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, taking over the role from Lindsey Huxley. In this role she administered the evacuation of children from London at the beginning of World War II. She was so successful that she was appointed National Administrator for the entire country. She was appointed OBE in recognition of this service in the 1941 Birthday Honours. When the WVS Association was formed in 1973, Halpin was elected as the founding Chairman of the Association. sitting on the Committee of Welfare and advising on war refugees from Europe. She also served as a Governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital from 1948 to 1974. and was president of the Federation of Soroptimist Clubs of Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI) from 1959 to 1960. She became chair from 1967 to 1971,

Halpin was interviewed in 1977 for Brian Harrison's Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews (number 138) and in1990 for the National Life Story Collection oral history project.

Halpin died in 1999.