Hester Adrian, Baroness Adrian

Hester Agnes Pinsent was born in 1899, in Harborne, Birmingham, Staffordshire, the only daughter of Hume Chancellor Pinsent (a relative of the philosopher David Hume){{Cite book|last=McComas|first=Alan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TJ8oXWKgj50C&q=Hester+Pinsent+Adrian&pg=PA106|title=Galvani's Spark: The Story of the Nerve Impulse|date=2011-08-08|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=978-0-19-975175-4|pages=106|language=en}} and his wife Dame Ellen Pinsent (née Parker). Her mother was a social reformer and novelist. When Hester Pinsent was a teenager, both of her brothers, David and Richard, died in World War I.{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-65865|title=Adrian [née Pinsent], Hester Agnes, Lady Adrian (1899–1966), penal reformer|last=Thom|first=D.|year=2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/65865|access-date=2020-03-27}}

Pinsent attended Somerville College, Oxford, from 1919 to 1922, graduating with second-class honours in modern history.

Hester Adrian lived in Cambridge as the wife of a professor (who was also Master of Trinity College from 1951–1965), and a social hostess of the university, welcoming distinguished guests to Trinity College with her husband.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/47453313/royal-visitors-at-cambridge/|title=Royal Visitors at Cambridge|date=1960-07-22|work=The Guardian|access-date=2020-03-27|pages=7|via=Newspapers.com}} She was also active as a volunteer in the Cambridge community. In 1936, she became a justice of the peace in Cambridge. During World War II, she worked for the Women's Voluntary Service in Cambridge, as a billeting officer. She took particular interest in the lives of children in crisis, and after the war she chaired the juvenile panel of the Cambridge magistrates' courts from 1949 to 1958. She joined the management committee of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, and in 1959 became president of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Adrian was also active in mental health and special education organizations.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/47453179/lady-adrian-to-lead-new-council/|title=Lady Adrian to Lead New Council|date=1964-02-14|work=The Guardian|access-date=2020-03-27|pages=2|via=Newspapers.com}} She was honorary secretary of the Cambridgeshire Mental Welfare Association from 1924 to 1934. She was vice-chair of the National Association of Mental Health (now known as MIND). The Hester Adrian Research Centre at the University of Manchester was established in 1968, to "conduct research into psychological and educational factors that affect the development of mentally handicapped children and adults".{{Cite web|url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb133-hac|title=Hester Adrian Research Centre Collection|website=Archives Hub|access-date=2020-03-27}}{{Cite journal|last=Mittler|first=Peter|date=September 1979|title=The Hester Adrian Research Centre: An overview|url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2F00004356-197909000-00023|journal=International Journal of Rehabilitation Research|language=en-US|volume=2|issue=3|pages=401–408|doi=10.1097/00004356-197909000-00023|s2cid=143846208|issn=0342-5282}}{{Cite journal|last=Moorehead|first=Caroline|date=23 October 1970|title=Manchester's bridge with the subnormal|journal=The Times Educational Supplement|pages=12|via=ProQuest}}

Hester Pinsent married Edgar Douglas Adrian on 14 June 1923. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1932, and he was President of the Royal Society from 1950 to 1955.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/47452870/baron-edgar-adrian-87-a-pioneer-in/|title=Baron Edgar Adrian, 87, a Pioneer in Physiology|date=1977-08-07|work=The Miami Herald|access-date=2020-03-27|pages=66|via=Newspapers.com}} They had three children:

• Anne Pinsent Adrian, who married the physiologist Richard Darwin Keynes
• Richard Hume Adrian, 2nd Baron Adrian (1927–1995)
• Jennet Adrian (born 1927), who married Peter Watson CampbellPeter Townend, ed., Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 105th edition (London, U.K.: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1970), p. 27

In 1942, she injured her leg badly, and it was amputated above the knee. The incident occurred in the Lake District when ‘a large rock, about 5 ft. high, suddenly broke away' when her husband took hold of it. The rock 'crushed her leg both above and below the knee’.{{cite web | title = A bad break in the Lakes | website =St Andrew’s University| date= 16 July 2015| first =Julie McDougall-| last = Waters | access-date = 8 October 2024 |url = https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophicaltransactions/a-bad-break-in-the-lakes/ }} She used a prosthetic leg thereafter. In 1965, she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contributions.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/47453096/new-year-honours/|title=New Year Honours|date=1965-01-01|work=The Guardian|access-date=2020-03-27|pages=3|via=Newspapers.com}} Hester Adrian died at her Cambridge home in 1966, aged 66 years.

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Category:1899 births

Category:1966 deaths

Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Category:British baronesses

Category:Mental health professionals

Category:People from Harborne

Category:People from Cambridge

Category:Mental health activists

Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford

Category:English justices of the peace