Ellesmere children's rights campaigner to get cemetery honour

Geneva is to honour one of the founders of Save the Children by moving her remains to a cemetery reserved for people who have played a significant role in the city's history.

Shropshire-born Eglantyne Jebb co-founded the charity with her sister, Dorothy Buxton.

She also wrote the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child and died in the city in 1928.

She will be reinterred at the Cemetery of Kings on 7 February.

"We're just incredibly amazed and flattered really, on her behalf," Richard Jebb, her great-great-nephew, said.

He said she had tried to avoid attention during her lifetime and added: "I think she would have thought it all a bit of a fuss about nothing."

But he said it was good that people were "gradually increasing the level of recognition which she has deserved for years and years".

"She has been a rather forgotten figure I think," he said.

Ms Jebb, who was born in Ellesmere, set up Save the Children in 1919 to help feed children left starving in Germany and Austria at the end of the World War One.

Later, she established the charity's international headquarters in Geneva and was involved with the newly-formed League of Nations.

This year marks 100 years since the league adopted her Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

It was a five-point charter which set out standards for the health, welfare and education for children and their protection from violence, abuse and exploitation.

The charter was later adopted by the United Nations and incorporated into its Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Ms Jebb died in Geneva following a stroke in 1928 at the age of 52 and was buried in the city.

At the request of the Swiss city, she will be moved to a cemetery she will share with figures such as the Protestant reformer John Calvin and British scientist Humphry Davy.

Gwen Hines, from Save the Children UK, said: "This posthumous honour granted by the city of Geneva is a fitting tribute for the legacy and impact of one incredible woman in her fight for social justice."

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