Dorothea Powell
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9 April 1897
Dorothea Powell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Dorothea Mary Powell 9 April 1897 Kensington, Middlesex, England |
| Died | 2 September 1986 (aged 89) Hove, England |
| Other names | Dot[1] |
| Occupation | Teacher |
| Partner | Jane Mervyn Newnham |
Dorothea Mary Powell JP (9 April 1897 – 2 September 1986) was a Girl Guide Association (GGA) executive. She was chair of the GGA education panel from 1950 to 1952 and in 1952 received the Silver Fish Award, the Girlguiding movement's highest adult honour. [2] She was Girl Guide commissioner for both Rangers and for schools in England.[3][4]
Dorothea Mary Powell was born to Edward Cotton Powell (1846 – 1922), a solicitor,[5] and Anne Caroline Powell, née Ingram (1866 – 1940). Dorothea had six siblings, including a twin, Thomas, who was killed in WWII. She was a distant relative of Robert Baden-Powell, the co-founder of the Girl Guide movement.[6]
Powell grew up on the Sussex Downs. She attended Queen Anne's School, Caversham[7] and was due to attend Oxford University but instead, she served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) for three years during WWI.[8]
Powell represented Sussex and the south of England at lacrosse. She became a teacher at Tudor Hall School, Chislehurst. She moved to Hove where she worked in social service and as a justice of the peace.[9][10]
From the 1950s she lived with Jane Mervyn Newnham, OBE initially together with fellow Guider Mary Cuningham Chater in Littlehampton,[11] and from around 1955 onwards in Southwick, West Sussex.[12][13]
