Group    From 1938 

Women's Voluntary Services

Categories: Benefactor

A voluntary organisation concerned with helping people in need throughout the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to help in the event of war. In 1966 its name was changed to the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, and in 2004 to just the WRVS. In 2013 it became the Royal Voluntary Service, to acknowledge the fact that some of its members were men.

In 2017 the Guardian reported that the archives of the organisation's 'narrative reports' are available on-line.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Women's Voluntary Services

Commemorated ati

Stella, Lady Reading

Stella Lady Reading, 1894 - 1971, Founder of the Women's Voluntary Services, ...

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Other Subjects

Thomas Charles Hudson

Thomas Charles Hudson

Thomas Charles Hudson was born on 2 September 1816 in Harrow, Middlesex, a son of William and Anne Hudson. He was baptised on 27 October 1816 in St Mary's Church, Church Hill, Harrow, where the bap...

Person, Benefactor

1 memorial
Marmaduke Langdale

Marmaduke Langdale

Active in 1859. Via JudyGr we found "1794: Langdale Marmaduke & Thomas, Distillers, 26, Holborn", mentioned in Dickens' 'Barnaby Rudge'. A connection seems very likely. 2018: The British Museu...

Person, Benefactor, Commerce

1 memorial
Deirdre Lynch

Deirdre Lynch

Donor to the Bridge of Aspiration

Person, Benefactor

1 memorial
Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, OM, GBE, CVO, FRCA, FBA, FKC

Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, OM, GBE, CVO, FRCA, FBA, FKC

Investment banker. We cannot find any specific connection between Lord Rothschild and Laurence Olivier, upon whose statue his name as a benefactor appears. We asked our colleague, Andrew Behan, to...

Person, Benefactor, Commerce

1 memorial
J. Mackerell

J. Mackerell

Gave land in commemoration of Nelson in 1905.  Great nephew of Isaac Smith through whom, it seems likely, he may have  inherited the land of Merton Abbey but how and when he acquired Merton Place a...

Person, Benefactor

1 memorial