Person    | Female  Born 1875  Died 1960

Lady Eleanor Keane

Categories: Children, Social Welfare

Pioneer in youth work. Born Eleanor Lucy Hicks-Beach, eldest daughter of 1st Earl St Aldwyn. On Valentine's day 1907, just 2 months before laying the foundation stone, she married the Irishman Sir John Keane (1873 -1956) and went on to have 1 son and 3 daughters. At the same period she was Chair of the St Mary’s Girls' Club Building Sub-Committee responsible for the 1907 building in Union Street. That Wikipedia link has a photo which may show Eleanor but since it claims to show two of Sir John's sons we don't trust it!

1931 The Sydney Morning Herald reports her organising an exhibition of embroidery in London. Chairman of the National Association of Youth Clubs 1924-1939. There is a Nerine flower named for her.

From Sisterhood or Surveillance? She was President of the National Council of Girls' Clubs and present at a 1937 international rally of physical culture in Hamburg ("Strength Through Joy"). Our photo comes from that document and is captioned "Girls' club members at a physical culture rally, Hamburg, 1938" so it seems possible that the lady in the dark suit behind the second row might be Lady Eleanor. Otherwise we refer you to the 3 photographic portraits of her with her 3 sisters (1923-31) held by the National Portrait Gallery, which, as we type, are "not currently available".

Her 12 December 1960 Times obituary doesn’t give many facts but makes it clear she was an important figure over a long period of time.

The plaque refers to 'our sisters': Eleanor had 3 sisters and perhaps her husband also had sisters, but that we cannot discover. Perhaps it was a nod to the suffrage movement? We think it probably just refers to the girls who belonged to the girls' club which used the building.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Lady Eleanor Keane

Commemorated ati

Lighthouse mission - Keane

To the honour & glory of God and in love of our sisters this stone was la...

Read More

Other Subjects

Evelina Hospital for Sick Children

Evelina Hospital for Sick Children

The Evelina Children's Hospital was founded by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild and named for his wife, who had died aged 27 with her child in labour in 1866. It was planned by Dr Arthur Farre in a pu...

Group, Children, Medicine

2 memorials
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

Founded as The Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children. Its first premises were at 49 Great Ormond Street a converted 17th cen...

Group, Children, Medicine

5 memorials
Queenie Isabella White

Queenie Isabella White

Drowned in the 1898 HMS Albion disaster, aged 1. Buried in grave 3 at the memorial in East London Cemetery.

Person, Children, Tragedy

1 memorial
Muschamp Junior School
1 memorial
Christopher David Pullen

Christopher David Pullen

Christopher Pullen, aged 12, died in Southdown House when a heavy steel fire door, lying off its hinges, propped up in the stairwell of a block of flats, fell on him causing fatal injuries. The doo...

Person, Children, Tragedy

1 memorial