Janet Stancomb-Wills

Who was Janet Stancomb-Wills?

Dame Janet Stancomb Graham Stancomb-Wills, DBE was the eldest daughter of George Perkins Stancomb and Catherine Janet Lobb, at Aldersgate, London, and niece of the first Baron Winterstoke. With the 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.

Dame Janet 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.