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Dame Eileen Younghusband

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date01 September 1981
DOI10.1177/026455058102800420
Date01 September 1981
Subject MatterArticles
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Dame Eileen Younghusband
A Group of the late Dame Eileen’s friends offer the following tribute
Much has already been written about Dame Eileen Younghusband following
her death on May 27th in a car accident in North Carolina. A variety of
tributes to her have mentioned, almost in passing, that she was Chairman of a
Juvenile Bench, but the depth and breadth of her involvement with the Proba-
tion Service seem to have been somewhat lost sight of in the magnitude of
what she did and was for social work in general.
Eileen became a JP in 1933, and for many years, until she retired in 1966,
was indeed Chairman of a Juvenile Bench. Her book Social Work and Social
Change provides a masterly analysis of the dilemmas faced there by both
magistrates and probation officers.
Eileen was in the deepest and truest sense an educator, a facilitator of the
processes of growth and maturation. She fulfilled this role in many different
ways, recognising that the public, and organised systems, can be even more
intrinsically averse to change than individuals. She taught at LSE, undertook a
number of specialised studies and served on many committees which had a
major influence on public opinion, government policy and legislation.
In the late 1950s when the pressure of probation officers’ profound discontent
resulted in the appointment of the Morison Committee, Eileen was a member
of it. The impact of its report was considerable. It included a clear definition
of the functions of the Service, and the need for adequate facilities, salaries,
recruitment and training. It gave the service a professional status it had long
felt was too often unrecognised.
Eileen served on the London Probation Committee from 1946-9, and from
1953-5. She was also for many years a member of the Probation Advisory and
Training Board, and of the Advisory Council for Probation and After-Care
which succeeded it in 1965. She was not...

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