| Arrangement | Before the creation of an archive catalogue by the SCF archivist in 1995, these papers were found with the Eglantyne Jebb papers (SCF/EJ) and the original references reflect this. The files were originally listed and numbered in the order of the boxes they were found in, mostly this is in the form of 14/1, which would be the first file in the 14th box. Some of the files are numbered 'CB' because they were loose and were transferred to clamshell boxes.
In 1995 the decision was taken to remove this selection of papers relating to Dorothy Buxton from the EJ series as "since she was not at that time closely associated with the Fund, these papers have been separated out as an individual collection." "These papers have been put together in this section because they seem to form a separate collection of private papers rather than being standard organisational files".
2014: The original arrangement of the papers into ten folders has been retained, but within the folders items have been sorted by type, including newspaper cuttings, other printed material, correspondence, draft reports and notes. Within these sections the items have been sorted chronologically, as far as possible. |
| Administrative History | Dorothy Buxton (1881-1963) co-founded the Save The Children Fund with her sister of Eglantyne Jebb in 1919. Like her sister, Dorothy went to University attending Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied political economy and social economics. There she met her husband Charles Roden Buxton and they married in 1904. Charles shared Dorothy's socialist ideals, working as an MP for mid Devon before joining the Independent Labour Party. The party was formed after splitting with the Liberals in reaction to their attitude to the war. Dorothy shared his disgust for the war and the way in which newspapers had been misrepresenting the political positions in Germany in relation to the causes and purpose of the war. Dorothy went on to set up 'Notes from the Foreign Press' which was a service to translate articles from European newspapers for publication in the Foreign Press Section of the 'Cambridge Magazine'. Her aim was to spread awareness of the facts in isolation from their use as propaganda. With this knowledge of the conditions in Europe taken from press translations, Dorothy and Eglantyne joined with members of the Women's International League to form a new political pressure organisation, the 'Fight the Famine Council', which campaigned to put an end to the blockade on the defeated countries of the war. Dorothy was in charge of gathering information and kept detailed case books of each country. Eglantyne and Dorothy undertook speaking tours in London to argue for aid on humanitarian grounds and on the grounds that famine led to instability and revolution which would be against British interests. The sisters were convinced that immediate practical effort to help was needed as well as political pressure so formed the Save the Children Fund, as an off-shoot of the Fight the Famine Council. The organisation was the first to specifically focus aid efforts on children as the sisters felt they were being neglected by other aid organisations. Dorothy put her energies into using her and her husband's press contacts to gain support for the Fund and supplying information on the famine situation. Dorothy was less active in the Fund than her sister, after devoting herself to lobbying, leaving her contribution often unacknowledged. Dorothy resigned as honorary secretary of Save the Children in 1919 but remained on the council for years.
Dorothy's commitment and social awareness continued into the Second World War. She spoke out regarding the concentration camps of Hitler's Germany: 'They filled me with horror and I was also filled with horror at the apathy and indifference which caused these facts to be ignored or their political and human significance to be underrated'. Dorothy collected and disseminated reports of refugees who were arriving in England and advocated welcoming refugees as a humanitarian act which was also economically beneficial in the pamphlet 'The Economics of the Refugee Problem' 1939.
The Russian famine of 1921-1922 was a large-scale disaster in the aftermath of the First World War and the Russian Civil War. Between 16 and 27 million people are estimated to have died. The situation in Russia was worsening due to poor harvests between 1919 and 1920. In reaction to such shortages people were forced to make bread with fifty percent other materials which resulted in weakened health and the spread of diseases such as cholera and typhus. The Soviet government did not act quickly and dismissed early reports as propaganda. Finally in 1921 at the 10th Party Congress, a new economic policy was developed. However, this was not sufficient as by the summer 1921 the country could not survive with such limited resources and was forced to reach out to international aid. Eglantyne Jebb reacted quickly to the Soviet Government's request for aid despite widespread scepticism. The Fight the Famine Council, working since the First World War, then set up the Save the Children Fund. Appeals were launched, with the first meeting taking place in May 1919 at the Royal Albert Hall where £18,000 was raised. In order to raise further awareness the fund placed advertisements in national newspapers which resulted in a total of £396,000,00 raised by April 1920. Several other aid agencies responded to the Soviet government's request such as the International Red Cross, the Society of Friends and Herbert Hoover's American Relief Administration (ARA). In August 1921 these organisations met in Geneva with the former Norwegian explorer Dr Nansen as High Commissioner opening talks with the Soviet foreign minister, Mr Chicherin. An International Committee for Russian Relief was established. An agreement was made that aid workers would be able to move freely in the famine area and the International Save the Children Union was allocated the most devastated region of Saratov on the Volga.
The Save the Children Union was forced to act quickly in the region as from December the port of Riga would be frozen and supplies would not be able to reach the population. Supplies had to be stored for over three months in advance to ensure continual aid. 25 October saw the opening of the first feeding centre in Saratov with further centres opening by November. At home the Fund encountered difficulties in persuading people to give money to a Bolshevik regime they opposed. Many initiatives aimed to expose the public to the reality of the suffering and spread the message that adults and children should be helped irrespective of their race or the politics of their government. In October 1921 a Daily Mail photographer George Mewes visited Russia and recorded the situation for Save The Children. The resulting film was perhaps the first charity appeal film, it was widely publicised and raised over £6,000. (This film, 'Soviet Famine Appeal', only now survives at the British Film Institute but there is a video copy in the SCF archive, in SCF/A1589; an article 'Filming the Famine' appears in 'The Record of the Save The Children Fund' volume for 1921-1922, page 137.)
Sources:
The Save the Children Fund Archives and Records Management information sheet on Eglantyne Jebb May 2002
Charles Roden Buxton: A memoir by Victoria de Bunsen, 1948, p. 68-69
The Woman who Saved the Children by Claire Mulley, 2009, p. 93, 227-229, 246-248, 288
The Save the Children Fund Archives and Records Management information sheet on the Russian Famine 1921, December 2001
The Save the Children Fund Archives and Records Management information sheet on Dorothy Buxton May 2002 |
| Archival Note | These papers were arranged and described in July 2014. Although the papers were kept in their original folders, the order the of the papers within the folders was not kept and the papers were sorted by type. It is likely the the material gathered together in many of the these files, especially SCF/SC/DB/5-10, was used to prepare speeches and reports, and the placement of, for example, newspaper cuttings next to an article may have been important context to the writing of the article. However, as this original order has been lost, the items have been kept in the sub-divisions implemented in 2014. (note, 19/03/2019). |