Alix Kilroy

Dame Alix Hester Marie Kilroy, Lady Meynell, DBE (1903–1999)[1] was one of the first two women to have entered the administrative grade of the Civil Service by examination (in 1925).

Her unconventional relationship (without benefit of marriage until 1946) with Francis Meynell, a poet, book designer and founder of Nonesuch Press, was childless, although she was devoted to her husband's large family of nephews and nieces.

Marriage in 1946 bestowed, as the wife of a "K" (he was knighted that year), the title of "Lady", although this honorific was, technically, to be trumped by the DBE awarded her in 1949.

[3] At about the end of the Second World War, the couple acquired "Cobbold's Mill" between Lavenham and Hadleigh, Suffolk, and there, for more than 20 years, they combined keeping open house to a multitude of friends with, until retirement, pursuit of their respective careers.

[5] Later, she was to become a founder-member of the SDP, and as late as the 1997 election she encouraged her friends to vote Lib-Dem rather than Labour on the grounds that this could end the Conservative stranglehold on Suffolk South; however, it did the opposite.