Jane Senior

Jane Nassau Senior (1828–1877) was Britain's first female civil servant, and a philanthropist. She was co-founder of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants (MABYS).

Senior was born Jane Elizabeth Hughes at Uffington on 10 December 1828, daughter of John Hughes and the only sister of the author Thomas Hughes and five other brothers.

Senior's relief work with material aid for the victims of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 supported the National Society for Aid to Sick and Wounded in War. She was involved directing the practical work of handling donations, and the Society was the forerunner of the British Red Cross.

Work with impoverished children in Surrey led to Senior's appointment in 1873, as an assistant inspector of workhouses. This post was given to her by James Stansfeld, against civil service opposition. The goal of the post was a Civil Service Report, which she framed as covering both pauper girls as school children, and their histories after school. When the Report appeared in 1875, the 1874 general election having intervened, it was the subject of heavy criticism by Carleton Tuffnell, acting in concert with The Times.

A meeting called by Thomas Vincent Fosbery in May 1874, at Lambeth Palace, brought together Elizabeth Browne, wife of Harold Browne the bishop of Winchester, Senior, Catharine Tait, wife of Archibald Tait, and Mary Elizabeth Townsend (1841–1918). They agreed to go about setting up the Girls' Friendly Society, founded on 1 January 1875. MABYS was founded in 1876, to support young single servant girls, with a different group, Senior not finding enough common ground with the senior Anglicans.

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