Maud Adeline Cloudesley Brereton

Maud Adeline Cloudesley Brereton (19 May 1872 – 16 April 1946), formerly Horobin, née Ford, was a British feminist and sanitary reformer who worked first in education and then as a promotional writer for the gas industry.

Personal life and education Maud Adeline Ford was born on 19 May 1872 in Marylebone in London, the eldest child of Matthew Ford, a butler and house steward, and Ellen Catherine (née MacDonald). She was baptised in July 1872.

She trained as a teacher at Hockerill College in Bishop's Stortford, Essex, and worked as headmistress of St Andrews Girls School in Willesden in 1893, then from 1894 as headmistress of Baroness Burdett-Coutts School in Highgate, both girls' secondary schools.

By the time of Horobin's early death in 1902, they had two daughters and a son. One of their daughters, Norah Horobin, went on to become a teacher and ended her career as headmistress of Roedean School. She was supportive of the women's suffrage cause.

Career

It was as "Mrs M. A. Cloudesley Brereton" that she became known as a social and sanitary reformer, and the author of The Mother’s Companion (1909), a book of advice for modern wives which promoted equality within marriage. When the British Commercial Gas Association was founded in 1911, she became editor of their Gas Journal (1912–1932). Much of her work was based on the concept of using gas and its technology to alleviate drudgery in the home as a way to improve the health of women and children. Brereton pushed the gas company managers to use and listen to the feedback from their lady demonstrators, as she believed that this would improve two-way communication between the consumers and producers of gas, and ensure that the domestic difficulties of customers could be factored into provision. as well as being a member of the Institute of Journalists, vice president of the Society of Women Journalists. The Future of Our Disabled Sailors and Soldiers (1917) Cooking by Gas (1930) Unemployed or Reserve? (1930)