Item 0010 - Letter, from Janet Trevelyan

Janet Penrose Trevelyan, CH (née Ward) was a British writer and social activist.
Trevelyan was the daughter of Humphry Ward and of Mary Augusta Ward, and through her mother was related to Matthew Arnold and Thomas Arnold. Her brother was the Conservative MP Arnold Ward. She married the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan in 1904; they had two sons and a daughter.
Following in her mother's footsteps, Trevelyan became involved in the movement to provide play centres for London children, which were eventually transferred to the London County Council in 1941. From 1931 to 1935 she organised the "Save the Foundling Site" appeal to purchase the site of the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury as a playground and welfare centre for children. Today the site is known as Coram's Fields.
Trevelyan also had a special interest in Italy: she authored several books on the country, and was instrumental in the establishment and survival of the British Institute of Florence, to which she served as Honorary Secretary from 1920 to 1946. She also authored a biography of her mother.
She was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1936.