Mary Joy Haweis (1852-1898) was the daughter of an artist and a writer on artistic dress and interior decoration. She was also a supporter of the suffrage movement. On her death her family and friends collected £160 for a memorial fund for ‘Poor Girls: to enable English and American girls between the ages of 12 and 20 years to learn a self-supporting trade or engage in a remunerative occupation, either by paying for their instruction, providing them with board, lodging or outfit, supplying them with travelling money or a premium for obtaining employment’, with an emphasis on technical training. In its early years the fund was administered jointly by a committee comprising representatives from the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, the Women’s Institute (Secretarial Training Department) and the Central Bureau. The fund was entrusted to the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women in 1902.
Papers relating to administration of the fund listed here comprise a record of repayment of loans from the fund, reports and correspondence.