Lady Ida Darwin

The Hon. Lady Emma Cecilia "Ida" Darwin (née Farrer; 7 November 1854 – 5 July 1946) was an English mental health campaigner and spent much of her career working to improve the quality of care for the more vulnerable in society.

Emma Cecilia “Ida” Farrer was born on 7th November 1854. She was the daughter of the lawyer Thomas Farrer of Abinger Hall (later Baron Farrer) by his first wife, Frances Erskine (1825–1870), daughter of the historian and orientalist William Erskine (1773–1852). The family lived in Dorking, Surrey where Ida and her father shared a love of botany. As a young girl, Ida enjoyed reading Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and her favourite was a story called ‘Little Ida’s Flowers’. As a result she insisted that she be known as Ida from then on.

Against her father's wishes, on 3 January 1880 Ida married Horace Darwin, son of the naturalist Charles Darwin at St Mary's, Bryanston Square. They had a son and two daughters:

In 1908, Ida, along with Florence Ada Keyes, founded the 'Cambridge Association for the Feeble-Minded'. This was in response to recommendations by the 'Royal Commission for the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded' in 1904. The commission was formed in order to consider 'the existing methods of dealing with idiots and epileptics, and with imbeciles, feeble-minded, or defective persons'. This was the first clear distinction between mental illness and learning disability or a brain injury.

Ida also helped to found the ‘Association for the Care of Girls’ along with other wives of Cambridge University dons in 1883. The group offered support to abused women and those drawn into sex work and helped them with training and getting back to other employment. Ida's daughter said of her that she 'realised the injustices they suffered in an ignorant and careless world. She suffered with them and there was awakened in her the deep convictions of the need for social and legislative reforms that guided her future course'. Her work with the particularly vulnerable, ‘feeble-minded’ women inspired her to campaign for legislation, such as the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913.

...
Wikipedia