Margery Annie Abrahams (1896 – 1983) was a British dietitian who helped organise the Kindertransport scheme to rescue children from the Holocaust.
Early life and education
editShe was born in 1896, the only child of medical doctor Bertram Abrams and his wife Jane, née Simmons, a concert pianist.[1][2] Both parents were from long-established Jewish families. She grew up in Amersham, and was raised by her maternal uncle after being orphaned at fourteen.[1]
In about 1918, Margery worked at the Zion Institute as the secretary of Benjamin Cohen, who remained a lifelong friend and a benefactor of her humanitarian efforts.[3][2]
Margery was one of the first women admitted to degrees at the University of Oxford when she gained an MA in history in 1920 at Somerville College. In 1927, she gained an MSc from Columbia University, New York, with a thesis on infant nutrition.[4]
Career and humanitarian work
editAs hospitals began to create posts for dietitians, she was taken on at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.[5] She mentored Dr Elsie Widdowson there and they published a book together in 1937, Modern Dietary Treatment, which contained tables for calculating the calorific content of foods and preventative dietary principles.[6] Margery served as the first chairperson of the British Dietetic Association from 1936, becoming one of the first Fellows there in 1979.[1]
Margery helped with the fundraising and organisation of the Kindertransport system.[7] She found local accommodation for refugee children, including fostering a fifteen-year-old escapee from Czechoslovakia in her home and hosting about twenty orphans in another of her properties.[1]
She died in 1983, commemorated by Abrahams Close in Amersham.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e "Margery Abrahams". Amersham Museum. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
- ^ a b Lash, Joseph P. (2020-04-10). Dealers and Dreamers: A New Look at the New Deal. Plunkett Lake Press.
- ^ Lasser, William (2008-10-01). Benjamin V. Cohen: Architect of the New Deal. Yale University Press. pp. 35–6. ISBN 978-0-300-12888-8.
- ^ Titles of Unpublished Theses in the Field of Home Economics Completed During the Years ... U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics. 1932. p. 44.
- ^ Smith, David F. (1997). Nutrition in Britain: Science, Scientists, and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-11214-7.
- ^ Ashwell, Margaret (1993). McCance & Widdowson: A Scientific Partnership of 60 Years, 1933 to 1993 : a Commemorative Volume Prepared as a Tribute to the 60-year Scientific Partnership Between Robert Alexander McCance ... and Elsie May Widdowson. British Nutrition Foundation. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-907667-07-0.
- ^ Bentwich, Norman (1956). They Found Refuge: An Account of British Jewry's Work for Victims of Nazi Oppression. Cresset Press.