LOWE, Evelyn Mary 1869-1956. Teacher and politician. The first woman chairman of the London County Council, and a prominent social worker and administrator in South London. She was born in Rotherhithe, the daughter of the Rev. J Farren, a Congregational minister. She trained as a teacher and early in life she joined the staff of Homerton College, Cambridge, where she later became Vice-Principal.
She married Dr George Lowe a distinguished physician who was in partnership with Dr Alfred Salter in Bermondsey. They formed the Bermondsey Labour Party with the co-operation of other activists from local churches and chapels. She became actively involved in local government and served as a borough councillor and member of the education committee. From 1922 until her death she sat for Bermondsey as a Labour member of the London County Council (LCC). She was appointed deputy chairman of the LCC in 1929 and chairman in 1939. She was chairman of the governors at James Allen’s Girls School and Honor Oak Girls School. A primary school in the Old Kent Road was named after her, and a portrait by AK Lawrence used to hang in the Ayes Lobby at County Hall. After World War Two, she lived at 30 Dulwich Common until her death in 1956. Her personal papers are in the Women’s Library, London Guildhall University.
Brian Green