Eglantyne Jebb (25 August 1876 – 17 December 1928) was a British social reformer who founded the Save the Children organisation at the end of World War I to relieve the effects of famine in Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Another sister, Dorothy, who married the Labour MP Charles Roden Buxton, campaigned against the demonisation of the German people after the war and served as a faculty member at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, United States, in 1929, teaching courses in English literature.

[2] A paternal aunt, a Victorian "new woman", introduced her and her siblings to carpentry, fishing and melting lead to cast bullets, and inspired her to go to University at a time when very few women did.

[7] Jebb sat on the committee of the newly formed League for Physical Education and Improvement, but resigned citing pressures from other workloads.

[6] She returned shortly before the First World War broke out, and soon was drawn into a project organised by her sister Dorothy, who had begun importing European newspapers – including ones from Germany and Austria-Hungary for which a special license had to be obtained from the government – and publishing extracts in English in the Cambridge Magazine, which revealed that everyday life in the enemy countries was far worse than government propaganda suggested.

Unexpectedly, this organisation, launched at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 19 May 1919, quickly raised a large sum of money from the British public.

[citation needed] In London, Jebb was in charge, and she ensured that the Fund adopted the professional approach she had learnt in the Charity Organisation Society.

He adopted the innovative – and controversial – approach of taking full-page advertisements in national newspapers; it was highly effective, and raised very substantial amounts of income for the Fund's work.

In 1923, when the Russian relief effort was coming to an end, and the Fund's income was sharply reducing, she turned to another issue, that of children's rights.

After many years of ill health due to a thyroid problem, including three operations for goitre, Jebb died in a nursing home in Geneva in 1928, and was buried there in Saint George's cemetery.

"[citation needed]On 7 February 2024, the government of Geneva had her mortal remains reburied at the Cimetière des Rois, which is considered the Genevan Panthéon, to honour her memory[13] for her involvement to the cause of the children rights.

[14] In 1919, Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton, who converted to the Society of Friends with her husband, founded Save the Children in England and the following year as an international organisation based in Geneva.