During that period she developed close relationships with her aunt, Edith Rendel, and her cousin, Mary Stocks, both of whom were active suffragists and social reformers.

In her spare time Rendel and her friend Phyllis Potter began running a nursery class in Whitefield's Tabernacle on Tottenham Court Road.

[8] The condemnation of the St Pancras building by the local council in 1917 and the continued German bombing of London led the Caldecott Community to move with its teachers and children to Maidstone.

The school moved several more times before finding a permanent home on 1947 in Mersham-le-Hatch, a large house surrounded by parkland located near Ashford in Kent.

That same year with a grant from the Nuffield Trust, Rendel set up the first experimental reception centre in England to assess the most appropriate placement for children who had been taken into care.

According to her biographer, Simon Rodway, she had suffered a broken hip in the fall and while lying on the floor and waiting for the ambulance, she insisted on reading the latest book on child care.