Violet Brooke-Hunt

Violet Edith Gwynllyn Brooke-Hunt (18 June 1870 – 9 June 1910) was an English writer and social worker. She was active in the Boer War, improving conditions for British troops in hospitals and camps.

Violet Brooke Hunt, from a 1903 publication.

Early life

Violet Brooke-Hunt was born in Tibberton, Gloucestershire. Her parents were Charles George Hunt, a naval officer, and Gertrude Price Hunt. Violet Brooke-Hunt attended Cheltenham Ladies' College.[1]

Career

Brooke-Hunt already had some community work experience when she moved to London as a young woman. There she continued her work with boys and young men, organizing clubs, sports programs, and vocational classes, and publishing pamphlets. She also published some didactic fiction through the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.[2] During the Boer War she went to South Africa, and was busy with improving the conditions for British troops there, including worship services, light entertainment, better food, cleaner facilities, enrichment classes and reading rooms.[3][4] She was awarded a medal for her services, and made a Lady of Grace of St John of Jerusalem.[5] She published a memoir of her war work, A Woman's Memories of the War, in 1901.[1]

Back in England in 1902, she used her "formidable energy and organisational zeal"[6] to gather Boer War veterans for the coronation of Edward VII; later she organized other clubs and leagues in London, including the Union Jack Club and the Women's Unionist and Tariff Reform Association (Tariff Reform League).[1][4]

Books by Violet Brooke-Hunt include Prisoners of the Tower of London (1901), The Story of Westminster Abbey (1904),[7] and Lord Roberts, a Biography (1914).[8]

Personal life

Violet Brooke-Hunt was engaged to marry Charles Bathurst in 1897,[9] but the wedding seems not to have taken place. She died just before her 40th birthday, from heart failure attributed to exhaustion.[1][4][10]

References
  1. Andrew S. Thompson, "Violet Edith Gwynllyn Brooke-Hunt" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press 2004).
  2. Julia M. A. Hawkesley, "Miss Violet Brooke-Hunt's Work for Boys" The Churchman (28 October 1899): 525.
  3. Jerusha D. Richardson, Women of the Church of England (Chapman and Hall 1908): 317.
  4. "Violet Brooke-Hunt: Demise of a Splendid Woman" The Dominion (18 June 1910): 11. via Papers Past
  5. "Presents to Miss Brooke-Hunt" King and Navy and Army (27 June 1903): 308-309.
  6. Andrew S. Thompson, Imperial Britain: The Empire in British Politics, C. 1880-1932 (Routledge 2014): 57. ISBN 9781317882534
  7. Violet Brooke-Hunt, The Story of Westminster Abbey (James Nisbet 1904).
  8. Online Books by Violet Brooke-Hunt, Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
  9. Untitled social item, Country Life Illustrated (3 April 1897): 343.
  10. Janet Horowitz Murray, Myra Stark, eds., The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions: 1909-1910 (Routledge 2017). ISBN 9781315394923
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