Alongside her husband, D. W. Winnicott, Clare would go on to become a prolific writer and prominent social worker and children's advocate in 20th century England.
[1] Her father, James Nimmo Britton, a Scot who had migrated south, was a gifted Baptist cleric whose oratory skills led to considerable growth in attendance at the numerous churches to which he had been assigned.
Clare's skills as a talented communicator and compassionate guardian of those in need can be drawn back to the example set by her mother and father throughout her life as young adult.
As a teenager Clare was a leader in her Sunday school, and actively participated in the Christian youth organization, the Girls' Brigade.
[1] The church hosted dinners for women who could not afford food and helped unemployed men find work, all organized by Clare's father.
Clare went on to attend Selly Oak College in Birmingham, a Baptist affiliated school, and earned her qualification as a teacher from 1929 to 1930.
The course included psychoanalytic theory under educational psychologist and psychoanalyst Susan Isaacs, a pupil of John Carl Flugel, who published studies on the intellectual and social development of children and promoted the Nursery school movement.
The early years of the Second World War proved intensely destructive in her life as, by 1941, her maternal grandmother had died and her younger brother had narrowly evaded capture by German troops during the Battle of Crete.
[1] Unlike her classmates Clare did not pursue a career in a mental health clinic or hospital setting on completing the LSE course.
Having witnessed firsthand how the war forced countless English families to evacuate their homes, fathers and brothers sent away to war, while mothers joined the workforce on the Home front, and a great number of children were left separated from their families, she believed that she could make more of an impact with her training by aiding the evacuations with the National Association for Mental Health.
In Oxfordshire she met Donald Winnicott, a medical supervisor, who visited every Friday to check up on the evacuation scheme in the area.
Clare explained her ideas about children channeled into the evacuation system and Dr. Winnicott, a paediatrician, shared this vision.
[1] The London School of Economics collaborated with the committee to establish Britain's first programme for the education of social workers in the new children's departments.
In her 1945 paper, "Children Who Cannot Play", she discussed the loss or removal of "loved" or attachment items such as blankets or specific toys and how this can impact a child's emotions and behaviour.
In 1946, she began teaching a course alongside Leslie Bell at the University of London entitled, "The Child in the Family and the Community."
[1] In 1946, she joined the education department of the National Association of Mental Health to offer courses for staff and childcare workers.
[6][1] Following her husband's death in 1971, she lost her job at the Home Office and returned to psychoanalysis and briefly to the LSE as head of the social work department.
[8] She ran a small analytic practice and offered clinical supervision to colleagues until she died as a result of skin cancer on April 15, 1984.