Janet Stancomb-Wills
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Dame Janet Stancombe-Wills, DBE (1853 – 1932) was the eldest daughter of George Perkins Stancomb and Catherine Janet Lobb, at Aldersgate, London, and niece of the first Baron Winterstoke (Sir W. H. Wills). With the untimely early deaths of her father, and older brother, she and her sister, Yda Emily Margaretha Stancomb, were adopted by Sir William Henry Wills, and Janet and Yda officially changed their names to Stancomb-Wills.
She was the first woman mayor of Ramsgate, Kent, an office which she held from 1923-24, and she was also the first person to receive, in 1922, the Freedom of the Town. She was president of the Royal West of England Academy and president of the School of Architecture at Bristol in 1921.
[edit] Philanthropy/Accomplishments
- She laid out ornamental gardens for public use on the sea front near her home on the East Cliff in Ramsgate
- She bought the land for the town's largest sports grounds and built the pavilions on it.
- She provided the money for a maternity ward and nurses home at the Ramsgate General Hospital. The Nurses Home in Ramsgate opened in 1927, containing 30 bedrooms and offices; she also provided the town with a motor ambulance and most up-to-date fire-fighting equipment.
- She also bought land for a new elementary school in Ramsgate, which was named in her honour, the Dame Janet Community Junior School
- The Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue (75°0′S 22°0′W) is the extensive seaward projection of the Stancomb-Wills Glacier into the eastern Weddell Sea. The cliffed front of this feature was discovered in January 1915 by a British expedition led by Ernest Shackleton. He named it the Stancomb-Wills Promontory after Dame Janet, one of the principal donors of the expedition.
| Preceded by William Henry Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke |
President of the RWA 1911 - 1932 |
Succeeded by Yda Richardson |
