Bridget Elizabeth Talbot

Bridget Elizabeth Talbot (1885 – 29 November 1971), was a British politician and campaigner. Background She was the daughter of the Hon. Alfred Chetwynd-Talbot, youngest son of the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and Emily Louisa Augusta, eldest daughter of the 5th Baron Walsingham. In 1914 she started the cultivation of co-operative gardens on waste land. The Ministry of Agriculture later adopted the scheme all over the country. She did much work with the Red Cross and refugee organizations in Belgium, Italy, Turkey, and Russia during and after the 1914–18 war. She received the Italian Medal for Valour for her work with the Anglo-Italian Red Cross on the Italian–Austrian front during the First World War from 1916 to 1919. She was awarded the [OBE] in 1920. From 1920 to 1922, she was in Turkey where she started a committee to deal with Russian refugees and later ran a co-operative farm colony in Asia Minor. She went to Russia in 1932, with Lady Muriel Paget’s Mission. She was instrumental in securing Ashridge Estate to the National Trust. In 1937 she took over joint ownership of Kiplin Hall in North Yorkshire. She retained an interest in the estate throughout the rest of her life. She invented a watertight electric torch for lifebelts and was instrumental in getting these made compulsory by Parliament for all MN, RAF and RN personnel, and so saved hundreds of lives during the Second World War.