Dame Henrietta Barnett papers, 1897-1935

  • IdentificationMSBarn64
  • TitleDame Henrietta Barnett papers MSBarn64
  • PublisherSpecial Collections
  • LanguageEnglish
  • RepositorySpecial Collections
  • Physical Description0.5 Linear feet
  • Date1897-1935
  • AbstractPart of the Jane Addams Memorial Collection. Part of the Midwest Women's Historical Collection. Together with her husband, Canon Samuel Barnett, Henrietta Barnett (1851-1936) founded the world's first settlement house, Toynbee Hall in London in 1844. In addition to her settlement work, Henrietta Barnett was interested in housing and helped found a model garden suburb at Hamstead. She collaborated on some of her husband's books, notably Practicable Socialism, (1888) and wrote his biography (1918). In 1924, she became Dame Commander of the British Empire. This collection consists primarily of correspondence with Jane Addams. It also includes correspondence with Mary Rozet Smith as well as newspaper clippings about Jane Addams. All letters from Jane Addams are photocopies. Acquired from Mrs. Elizabeth Linn Murray.
  • OriginationBarnett, Henrietta, Dame, 1851-1936

Old Resource ID was HBarnett

Dame Henrietta O. Barnett was born at Clapham in England on May 4, 1851 to Alexander William Rowland and his wife, Henrietta Monica Margaretta Ditges. Henrietta married Samuel A. Barnett, a curate at St. Mary's church, Bryanston Square, when she was twenty-one years old. She is best known for her work at Toynbee Hall, the first university settlement, founded by her husband in the St. Jude's parish of Whitechapel in 1884. Named after the eminent historian and economist, Arnold Toynbee (1852-1881), the purpose of the settlement was for those who possessed wealth and education to share their knowledge and provide assistance to the poor. Canon Barnett also expected the new residents "to learn as much as to teach; to receive as much as to give," and thus hoped to influence changes in how the privileged elite of Britain related to the rest of the population.

Toynbee Hall spawned several new organizations, e.g., the Children's Country Holiday Fund (1884), the Worker's Education Association (1903), and the Youth Hostel Association (1931) among others. Many eminent figures in British progressive circles had links to Toynbee Hall including the economist, William Beveridge (1879-1963), and the Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee (1883-1967). Jane Addams was inspired to found Hull-House in Chicago after a visit to Toynbee Hall.

Henrietta O. Barnett was active in many different projects of Toynbee Hall and its affiliated organizations. She was manager of the Forest Gate district school, 1875-1897. Dame Henrietta co-founded the Children's Country Holiday Fund and the London Pupil Teachers' Association, serving as the latter organization's president from 1891 to 1907. She helped her husband found the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1901 and became a lifelong trustee. Her interest in nature and art led her to raise money to preserve Hampstead heath with the establishment of the Hampstead Garden Surburb Trust in 1903. This pioneering effort in urban planning sought the physical integration of different social classes into a single community with houses of different size on adjacent grounds, public buildings for worship, recreation, and education as well as extensive green space.

Henrietta Barnett assisted the propagation of the settlement idea in the United States and was elected honorary president of the 480 strong American Federation of Settlements in 1920. Henrietta O. Barnett was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1924. She then took up painting at the age of seventy-two producing a work considered good enough to hang in the Royal Academy and later died at Hampstead on June 10, 1936.

Most of the Dame Henrietta O. Barnett Collection consists of correspondence between Dame Henrietta O. Barnett and Jane Addams. Other items include published material by Jane Addams, an obituary for Jane Addams printed in a report of the Women's international League for Peace and Freedom, memoranda regarding a proposed visit to America by Barnett, and some newspaper and magazine clippings.

The Dictionary of National Biography. 1931-1940. London: Oxford University Press, 1949.

Mrs. Elizabeth Linn (Robert A.) Murray donated these materials to the University of Illinois in September 1964.

Dame Henrietta Barnett papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago

  • Names
    • Addams, Jane, 1860-1935 -- Correspondence
    • Barnett, Henrietta, Dame, 1851-1936 -- Archives
    • Hull-House (Chicago, Ill.).
    • Smith, Mary Rozet, d. 1934 -- Correspondence