Frances Farrer

Who was Frances Farrer?

The Hon. Dame Frances Margaret Farrer DBE was Secretary of the NUSEC and later was named as General Secretary of the Women's Institute in 1929.

The daughter of a senior civil servant, she ran the office on civil service lines; Meriel Withall, one of her successors said "it was a model of [good] government". Partly through her family connections she had a network of contacts which were very useful to NFWI as the organisation became increasingly active in lobbying government. She was the daughter of Thomas Farrer, 2nd Baron Farrer and his first wife Evelyn Spring-Rice, daughter of The Hon. Charles Spring-Rice, the son of Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon.

A founder member, in 1920, and first secretary of Abinger Women's Institute, she later became Director of the Abinger Hall Estate Co. Later she worked as a VCO in Surrey and was a member of the County Executive Committee. In 1926 she was appointed as one of the Regular Organisers of the NFWI. In 1929 she was promoted to Assistant Secretary of the NFWI, and later General Secretary, a post she held until her retirement in 1959.