Dame Enid Mary Russell Russell-Smith, DBE (3 March 1903 – 12 July 1989) was a British civil servant.

Career

Born in

Esher Esher ( ) is a town in the borough of Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole, Surrey, River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London, close to the London–Surrey border; with Esher Commons at its ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

to Arthur Russell-Smith and Constance Mary (née Dilke), she attended

Saint Felix School Saint Felix School is a 2–18 mixed, private, day and boarding school in Reydon, Southwold, Suffolk, England. The school was founded in 1897 as a school for girls but is now co-educational. History The school was founded in 1897 as a girls' s ...

Southwold Southwold is a seaside town and civil parish on the North Sea, in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It lies at the mouth of the River Blyth, Suffolk, River Blyth in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths ...

, and

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

, graduating in 1925. She was one of the first women to enter the British civil service via competitive examination. She joined the MoH (Ministry of Health) as an Assistant Principal, where she was later promoted to: : Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary (1930-34) : Principal (1934-39) and Assistant Secretary (from 1939) During World War II she helped evacuate children from Britain's major cities to the countryside to escape

the Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...

After World War II

Russell-Smith later participated in the establishment of the UK's

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

, holding the titles of Principal Assistant Secretary, Under-Secretary and Deputy Secretary. She retired from the Civil Service in 1963, entering academia, being appointed as Principal of St Aidan's College at

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

from 1963 to 1970. She was a part-time lecturer at Durham until 1986. She died at home on 12 July 1989, unmarried, aged 86.

Awards/honours

She was an honorary fellow of

and was named

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

in 1953. Russell-Smith was also among the first British women to be awarded a black belt in

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...

. She began judo at age 34, and achieved her

shodan SHODAN (), an acronym for Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network, is the main antagonist of Looking Glass Studios's cyberpunk-horror themed video game ''System Shock (series), System Shock''. An artificial intelligence originally in charg ...

(first black belt) grading in 1945. She ultimately achieved a 3-dan ranking through the London Budokwai. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, she also edited Britain's first regular judo publication, the ''Budokwai Quarterly Bulletin''.

Publications

* "Modern Bureaucracy: the Home Civil Service" (1974). Gazette Issue 39863 published on 26 May 1953, p. 15

References

External links

*The Papers of Dame Enid Russell-Smith at th
Churchill Archives Centre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russellsmith, Enid 1903 births 1989 deaths Academics of Durham University Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge National Health Service people British civil servants Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire People from Esher People educated at Saint Felix School