Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading (also Baroness Swanborough)

Sitter in 16 portraits
Chair and founder of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, an organisation created in 1938 to assist the civil population in the event of war. Having led the voluntary Personal Service League since 1932, Stella Isaacs was invited to form the WVS by Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary. By 1942 the WVS had mobilized more than 1 million women to help with evacuations, the care of refugees and bomb victims, and welfare provision for the armed forces. Continuing after the war, the organisation gained its royal accolade in 1966 and Lady Reading remained active as its chair throughout her life. She was created Baroness Swanborough in 1958, becoming the first woman to receive a life peerage.