Who was Elfrida?

Elfrida Rathbone was born in 1871. She was related to Eleanor Rathbone, one of the first women MP’s and an early campaigner for what became child benefit. In 1916 Elfrida came to Kings Cross to work with her cousin, Lillian Gregg, who had set up a special kindergarten for young children considered to be 'ineducable' and 'mentally defective'.

Her aim was to demonstrate that these children could learn and progress if given appropriate teaching. Already, in the early 1900s Lillian Gregg was challenging the damaging effect of judgmental attitudes towards people with learning difficulties.

She adopted a young child with a learning difficulty whom she taught to read and write, but both she and the child died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.

Elfrida Rathbone carried on Lillian Gregg's work after her death.

She established an Occupation Centre in Kings Cross in 1919, for children excluded from schools because of their learning difficulties.

Over the next two decades she set up a Girls Club and a “Married Girls” class with a crèche as well as a befriending scheme for children with learning difficulties who were confined to Public Assistance Homes.

Elfrida Rathbone also put a lot of energy into campaigning work. She recruited members for the Care Committee which ran Islington's Special Schools and encouraged close liaison between parents and teachers.

Her emphasis on co-operative working ensured that children who had previously been excluded were invited to share school activities, outings and parties.

Elfrida Rathbone was a pioneer and an astute and charismatic woman. The principles which underpinned her work of respect, equality, integration and choice are now so widely shared that they almost seem commonplace but at the beginning of this century her ideas were tremendously radical and progressive, and they are still highly relevant.

Unfortunately there is still a great need for the work that she began - the world has changed less than we would have wished. The need to campaign for more choice, equality, access to services and a better quality of life for people with learning difficulties, is still necessary today.