File 24 - Men and Women.

Kathleen Irene Hancock was born February 10, 1900 to Claude Hancock (1872-1955) and Henrietta Maria Wingfield-Digby (1867-1967) of the Wingfield-Digby's of Sherborne Castle. Irene was educated at Headington School for Girls, Oxford (where she was Head Girl) and Portsmouth School for Girls before attending Mrs. Hoster's Typewriting, Shorthand and Translation Office where she took a six month course in secretarial training. She became a member of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC) and served as the General Secretary until 1928. The same year she also helped to organize and taught at the NUSEC summer school, held at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. The summer school offered classes to women in topics on politics and enacting on your enfranchisement. After this point she traveled to Vienna, Austria where she studied abroad and watched over the education of Ray Strachey's daughter Barbara. Correspondence from this time indicates that she intended to return to England sit the bar, however census records show that in 1932 she was working as a personal assistant to the Hon. S. Baldwin. Irene died in 1989 in Liss, Hampshire.