Frances Batty Shand
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Frances Batty Shand (c.1815–1885) was an early charitable activist in Cardiff, Wales.
Shand was born in about 1815 in Jamaica,[1] the daughter of John Shand, a Scottish plantation owner, and an enslaved woman named Frances Brown.[2] She was sent to live in Elgin, Scotland in 1819, probably to live with an aunt. She remained unmarried.[1][3]
In the mid 1800s[4] Shand came to Cardiff, where her brother John Batty Shand (c.1804-1877) worked for the Rhymney Railway Company.[1] With the help of money inherited from her father, Shand founded the Association for Improving the Social and Working Conditions of the Blind[5] (which became Cardiff Institute for the Blind) in April 1865. The Association initially helped five blind men set up basket-making workshops.[4]
Shand retired in 1877.[6] She died in Switzerland in 1885, though her body was returned to Cardiff for burial at Allensbank Cemetery.[1] She bequeathed money to the Institute to allow it to continue with financial security.[2] In 1953 it moved to a new purpose built four storey building on Newport Road, Cardiff, which was named Shand House in her honour in 1984.[6]
Shand was the subject of an ITV television programme in 2013.[7]