Dame Beryl Carnegy Oliver GBE Russian Research Center, known as Lady Beryl Oliver from 1912 to 1920, was a British charity administrator as well as the British Red Cross Society"s Director of Education.
Background
Beryl was born in Australia to British parents, Francis Edward Joseph and Isabella Eliza Butter (née Carnegy), who came from a titled Scottish family. Her father Patrick Carnegy of Lour International Commission on Illumination, was a descendent of David Carnegie, 2nd Earl of Northesk. The family later adoped the Carnegy surgname after Isabella succeeded to her father"s estates in 1915.
Education
Beryl was educated privately in England and France.
Career
In 1910, she joined the Street John Ambulance Brigade and rapidly rose through the ranks. On the outbreak of the First World War she was put in charge of the Naval and Military Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) Department, which administered the combined nursing staff of Street John Ambulance and the British Red Cross Society. She held the post throughout the war, but resigned in 1922 in opposition to plans to disband the VADs.
She later joined the British Red Cross Society as head of its VAD department.
Oliver was credited with keeping the British Red Cross alive after the First World War, as she was later eulogized by a friend in The Times — After the war she became the Society"s Director of Education, retiring in 1956. She then became the BRCS"s archivist and published its definitive history, The British Red Cross in Action, in 1966.
She published a second book, The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, in 1969. Her husband died in 1965, aged 101.
Dame Beryl died in London in 1972, aged 89.
Per her wishes, her ashes were interred on the Hill of Lour, Angus.
Membership
During the Second World War she was a member of the Society"s War Organisation Executive Committee and several other committees.