Lettice Fisher

Lettice Fisher ( Ilbert; 14 June 1875 – 14 February 1956) was the founder of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, now known as Gingerbread. She was also an economist and a historian.

Background and education Lettice Ilbert was born on 14 June 1875 in Kensington, London to Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert and his wife, Jessie.

Whilst at Oxford, Fisher was also involved in voluntary work in housing, public health and child welfare. She ran to become President of the NUWSS in 1919, following Millicent Fawcett‘s post-war resignation, but was defeated by Eleanor Rathbone.

The National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child During World War I, Fisher undertook welfare work among women munitions workers in Sheffield. It was the wartime scale of illegitimacy and its resulting hardships that led her, in 1918, to found the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, in order to challenge the stigma associated with single parent families, and to provide them with the support they needed. They also provided practical advice and assistance to single parents, and helped with their inquiries.

Lettice Fisher was the first chair of the Council (from 1918 to 1950), with Sybil Neville-Rolfe acting as the deputy chair.

Family life In July 1899, she married Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher, a tutor at New College, Oxford, who had taught her as an undergraduate. He sat as Liberal Member of Parliament in Sheffield Hallam in 1916-18 and became Warden of New College in 1925.

In 1913, they had one daughter, Mary Bennett, who became principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford, from 1965 to 1980. She was interviewed, in October 1974, about her parents, by the historian, Brian Harrison, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews . Bennett talks about her mother's character and friendships in Oxford, her advice to new mothers and her teaching, writing and broadcasting. She also discusses Fisher's support for his wife, and their shared interests in Oxford, Suffragism and Liberal politics, as well as their friendship with Gilbert Murray and Sir Lady Murray.

An undergraduate of New College, Michael Crum, was also interviewed about Fisher in November 1974. He recalled her termly teas for undergraduates, work for unmarried mothers and membership of the university orchestra, playing the violin.

After her husband's death in 1940, she moved to Thursley in Surrey. She died there on 14 February 1956 after suffering a stroke. After cremation her ashes were interred at New College, Oxford.