Isobel Cripps

Dame Isobel Cripps, GBE (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 Isobel Swithinbank at Denham, Buckinghamshire, she was the second daughter and the youngest of three children of Commander Harold William Swithinbank (1858–1928), a landowner of Denham Court, and his wife, Amy, the daughter of James Crossley Eno, the inventor of Eno fruit salts. She was educated privately and at 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 Isobel 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 were married on 12 July 1911 at Denham parish church.

During World War II, Isobel 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 Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Soong. 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.

After the marriage of her daughter, Peggy, to Joe Appiah, Isobel developed an interest in affairs in Ghana and visited Appiah in Accra when he was being held under a preventive detention order. In addition to her appointment as a GBE, she was also appointed a Special Grand Cordon of the Order of the Brilliant Star, first class, and in 1946 was given the award of the National Committee of India in celebration of International Women's Year. She died on 11 April 1979 in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire.

ource

*Colin Watson, "Cripps , Dame Isobel, Lady Cripps (1891–1979)", revised, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30983, accessed 19 Aug 2008]