Isobel Cripps

Dame Isobel Cripps, GBE (née Swithinbank; 25 January 1891 – 11 April 1979), also known as Lady Cripps, was a British overseas aid organiser and the wife of Sir Stafford Cripps.

Born at Denham, Buckinghamshire, she was the second daughter and the youngest of three children of Commander Harold William Swithinbank, DL (1858 – 1928), a landowner of Denham Court, and his wife, Amy, the daughter of James Crossley Eno, inventor of Eno fruit salts. Through her grandfather Admiral George Winthrop she was descendant from the Winthrop family of New England in British North America. She was educated privately and at the Heathfield School, near Ascot.

Swithinbank met Stafford Cripps in January 1910. His father, Charles Cripps, was standing in the Conservative interest for Wycombe, with Stafford supporting his father's candidature; among the campaign helpers was Isobel. The pair corresponded and she visited the Cripps home at Parmoor. The following year, both were members of a family party which went to the winter sports in Switzerland and they soon became engaged. The couple married on 12 July 1911 at Denham parish church.

They had four children:

During World War II, Lady Cripps was president of the British United Aid to China Fund, and in June 1946, was appointed a GBE for her public services. Later that year, she undertook an extensive tour of China where she was the guest of General and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. During her tour, she was invited by Mao Zedong to visit Yenan and was welcomed on her arrival by Madame Jiang. She was later Chairwoman of the Sino-British Fellowship Trust for some years. Following the marriage of her daughter, Peggy, to Joe Appiah, Lady Cripps developed an interest in affairs in Ghana and visited Appiah in Accra when he was being held under a preventive detention order.

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