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Hilda Jennings
Born7 February 1894 (1894-02-07)
Stafford, England
Died1978 (aged 83–84)
EducationStafford Girls' High School
St Hilda's College, Oxford (BA)
London School of Economics (MA)
Parents
  • Arthur Jennings (father)
  • Anne Madders (mother)
RelativesCharles Venables (brother-in-law)

Hilda Jennings (1894–1978) was a British community activist, social worker, author, and academic. She is best known for her efforts to improve the lives of working-class communities, particularly through her work in the East End of London, at the Bryn Mawr Community, and as Warden of the Barton Hill University Settlement.

Background

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Hilda Jennings was born into a Stafford family established in commerce. The family firm, R. T. Jennings & Son of Stafford, dated back to the 19th century and was, at its height, the largest local footwear manufacturer and wholesaler. In 1959, the business was restructured as Jen Shoes Ltd.[1] Her father, Arthur Thomas Jennings JP (d. 1926), was a prominent businessman who owned the company until it was incorporated as a limited company in 1922. He also served as a director of the Stafford Railway Building Society.[2][3][4]

The Jennings children enjoyed a comfortable and privileged upbringing, reflective of their family’s social standing and commercial success. Both of Hilda’s siblings went on to lead successful lives: her brother, Arthur Tildesley Jennings, joined the family business and later became its managing director,[3][4][5] while her sister, Nellie Jennings, married Charles Venables, a wealthy industrialist and timber merchant from an industrial Quaker family, similar in status to their own.[6]

Jennings' mother was Anne Madders, who married Arthur Thomas Jennings in 1892.[7][8] She was from a Staffordshire farming family, then based at Seighford Grange.[3] Her father John Madders later moved to farm at Coppenhall, dying shortly afterwards, where two of Anne's brothers carried on the farm.[9]

Education

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Hilda Jennings attended Stafford Girls' High School and won an open scholarship in 1912 to attend St Hilda's Hall, Oxford.[10] From there she went on to study at the London School of Economics,[11]: 78  gaining a Master's degree in Social Science. She graduated at Oxford in 1920.[12]

Career

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In 1937 Jennings became the warden at University Settlement Barton Hill, Bristol, a position she held for twenty years.[11]: 78  She was subsequently its director of research.[13] With her arrival, sporadic social work training at the settlement became well established.[14]

In 1939 Jennings and Winifred Gill were asked by Robert Silvey of BBC Radio's audience research department to do a local survey of working class listening.[15] They found a particular benefit in the regular series of programmes on child care and maternal health pioneered by Margery Wace.[16] After the outbreak of World War II, in December 1939, the BBC moved its continuous survey of listening from London to Bristol, with Silvey's department.[17]

Jennings was known for encouraging people in the Bristol region while the area was being redeveloped in the 1950s and 1960s.[18]

In her 1962 book Societies in the Making, Jennings describes Barton Hill in Bristol and examines how the community decided to rebuild in the same area.[19]: 60 

Selected publications

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  • Jennings, Hilda (1930). The private citizen in public social work. London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd. OCLC 7098912.[20]
  • Jennings, Hilda; Brynmawr community study council (1934). Brynmawr; a study of a distressed area, based on the results of the social survey carried out by the Brynmawr community study council. London: Allenson & Co. OCLC 3058804.[21]
  • Jennings, Hilda; Gill, Winifred (1939). Broadcasting in everyday life: a survey of the social effects of the coming of broadcasting. British Broadcasting Corporation. OCLC 224036420[22]
  • Jennings, Hilda (1973). Sixty years of change, 1911-1971. Bristol: University Settlement Bristol Community Association. ISBN 0-9502865-0-8.
  • Jennings, Hilda (1962). Societies in the making: a study of development and redevelopment within a county borough. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-03449-8. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)[23]

References

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  1. ^ Page, William (1979). The Victoria History of the County of Stafford: Agriculture, schools, Stafford. University of London, Institute of Historical Research. p. 218.
  2. ^ "'Railway' Centenary". Staffordshire Newsletter. 14 October 1977. p. 26.
  3. ^ a b c "Death of Stafford Boot and Shoe Factor". Staffordshire Advertiser. 10 July 1926. p. 7.
  4. ^ a b "Local Police Courts: Stafford Borough (Monday)". Staffordshire Advertiser. 25 March 1922. p. 3.
  5. ^ "Long Association with Shoe Trade: Retirement of Mr. E. Lake". Staffordshire Advertiser. 11 January 1936. p. 10.
  6. ^ "Charles Joseph Venables Obituary". Staffordshire Newsletter (Uttoxeter ed.). 17 February 1989. p. 3. Retrieved 19 April 2025.
  7. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 20 April 2025.
  8. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 20 April 2025.
  9. ^ "Death of Mr. W. H. Madders". Staffordshire Advertiser. 11 July 1931. p. 9.
  10. ^ "Stafford: Scholarship Success at the Girl's High School". Staffordshire Advertiser. 4 May 1912. p. 7.
  11. ^ a b Mayne, A. J. C. (Alan James Christian) (2017). Slums : the history of a global injustice. Internet Archive. London, UK : Reaktion Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-78023-809-8.
  12. ^ Oxford University Gazette Vol. 51 1920–1921. 1921. p. 134.
  13. ^ Mayne, Alan (2023). The Oxford Handbook of the Modern Slum. Oxford University Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-19-087945-7.
  14. ^ Scott, John (6 March 2020). British Sociology: A History. Springer Nature. p. 11. ISBN 978-3-030-38371-8.
  15. ^ Worthington, Debra L.; Bodie, Graham D. (8 July 2020). The Handbook of Listening. John Wiley & Sons. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-119-55414-1.
  16. ^ Andrews, Maggie; McNamara, Sallie (24 April 2014). Women and the Media: Feminism and Femininity in Britain, 1900 to the Present. Routledge. p. 39. ISBN 978-1-135-10691-1.
  17. ^ Emmett, B. P. "Silvey, Robert John Everett (1905–1981)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65434. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  18. ^ Deeney, Yvonne (15 July 2024). "Barton Hill Project celebrates women who shaped area". The Post ; Bristol (UK). p. 6 – via Proquest.
  19. ^ Miller, Joan B. (1972). The casework ministry. Internet Archive. London, S.C.M. Press. ISBN 978-0-334-00163-8.
  20. ^ Review of The private citizen in public social work
  21. ^ Review of Brynmawr
  22. ^ Jennings, Hilda; Gill, Winifred (1939). Broadcasting in everyday life : a survey of the social effects of the coming of broadcasting. British Broadcasting Corporation. OCLC 224036420.
  23. ^ Reviews of Societies in the making
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