| Description | Papers of Mosa Anderson, including correspondence, minutes, reports, notes and press cuttings, primarily relating to her work for Save the Children Fund on the establishment of nurseries in war-time Britain and post-war relief work in the Nieporet [Nieporent] district of Poland, but also including reports of Mosa Anderson, Noel Buxton and Charles Buxton on their visits to France in 1933 and 1934 to survey the conditions of German refugees on behalf of Save the Children Fund. The collection also contains a photograph of a meeting [in Geneva]. |
| Administrative History | Mosa Anderson (1891-1978) was associated with Save the Children Fund (SCF) for many years, serving as a member of the SCF Council 1933-1967. In 1916, on her return from Paris where as an accomplished linguist she had been studying Russian - she was also fluent in French and German - she was asked by Dorothy Buxton to assist in the production of the 'Cambridge Magazine' which ran articles translated from foreign newspapers. In this capacity she acted as a Russian language translator. After the foundation of SCF in 1919 she moved to Manchester to continue with 'Notes from the Foreign Press' which had been taken over by the 'Manchester Guardian', and continued presiding over the editorial work until the end of 1921. Mosa Anderson attended a SCF Summer School and an Esperanto Conference in Geneva in the 1920s. In 1923, then in London, she became secretary to Charles Roden Buxton, MP, husband of Dorothy Buxton, Eglantyne Jebb's sister, joining him in investigating the situation of German refugees in France in the 1930s.
During World War II she worked on the establishment of residential nurseries in Britain and later, in April 1946, she went to Poland to organise post-war relief work, spending some 11 months there. On her return to England she contracted German measles but when recovered she went on to work in Germany.
Mosa Anderson was also a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILP); and was the author of several books including 'German and Europe's Future (National Peace Council, 1946), 'Noel Buxton: A Life' (George Allen & Unwin, 1952; Noel Buxton was the brother of Charles Roden Buxton, Eglantyne Jebb's brother-in-law), and 'Henry Joseph Wilson: Fighter for Freedom' (James Clarke & Co, London, 1953).
Main source: SCF 'Archives Guide' compiled by Rodney Breen, 1995 |