Teresa Merz

Teresa Merz (28 May 1879 – 12 November 1958) was an English social worker, philanthropist and magistrate.

Early life Merz was born in Gateshead. She was the third child, and only daughter, of industrial chemist John Theodore Merz (a Quaker from Germany) and Alice Mary Richardson, a sister of John Wigham Richardson, the Tyneside ship builder. Merz grew up in Newcastle's West End.

In 1896 she studied at Durham College of Science in Newcastle. In 1903 Merz won the Gladstone Prize for an essay on early Whig politicians; this work was later published as The Junto. In October 1904 Merz was admitted to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied philosophy, history and economics for one year.

Merz spent part of the war in Serbia where she provided relief work. She was later awarded the Medal of Merit by the Crown Prince of Serbia.

Inter-war years In 1920 Merz left the Quaker movement and joined the Church of England. In 1921 Merz was appointed as a magistrate and would become the second longest-serving magistrate in the Newcastle.

In 1928 Merz opened a second hostel which trained spinsters and childless widows, aged 18 to 35, in domestic work with a view to sending them to the Dominions.

In 1933 Merz converted the family home into a residential nursery for illegitimate babies and toddlers. In September 1939 the staff and children were evacuated to a family property, Heugh Folds, in Grasmere.

Death Merz died at home on 12 November 1958. She had continued to work until two days before her death.

Publications The Junto. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Andrew Reid and Company, Ltd. 1907.