REMARKABLE CAREER

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1687, 29 June 1904, Page 71 (Supplement)

REMARKABLE CAREER

SAVED WOMEN FROM THE GAJ>

LOWS,

The death has occurred of Miss Ger* : trude Jenner, of The Typica, Wenvoe, Glamorganshire, in her 70th year. She was the oldest unmarried daughter of the late Mr Robert Francis Jenner, of Wenvoe Castle, Glamorgan, who died on Easter Day, 1860, being under a deeprooted impression that she had been deprived of her interest in the Wenvoe Castle Estate by a certain document executed on behalf of her eldest brother, the late Captain Jenner, of VVenvoe Castle, in 1861, Miss Jenner devoted herself mainly, since that year to the arduous task of trying to prove her claim. For this purpose she had regularly appeared, year byyear, almost every session at the High Courts of Justice where she was a wellknown and familiar figure. Miss Jenner had 1 also for upwards of 40 years been engaged in, what she described as her “public work” of philanthropy. She was the recipient of a larger number of official communications from her late and. his present Majesties’ Secretaries of State (intimating that the capital sentence passed upon young women convicted of the murder of their infant children, had, through her instrumentality, been reduced to sentences of penal servitude) than any other woman living. Every young woman brought up on the capital charge always found in Miss Jenner a real and valued friend. Miss Jenner used to declare with pride that she had been the means of saving no fewer than fourteen young women from the gallows. About 12 years ago a Cardiff girl drowned her babe in the canal. Miss Jenner, who was seated very near the dock at the Assizes, informed the judge she was there to watch the proceedings on behalf of “my fallen sister.’’ Judge Baggallay at once firmly requested her to sit down. The evidence in the case was very conclusive, and prisoner was sentenced to be hanged. Ere the day was out Miss Jenner had prepared a petition, which was numerously signed, and eventually the sentence avas commuted. It was in a similar case at Swansea where Miss Jenner again intimated that she was present to watch the proceedings on behalf of the prisoner, and the judge invited her to take a seat near him on the judicial bench. Miss Jenner was an ardent loyalist, and her telegrams of sympathy or of congratulation to the King and Royal Family were features connected with the death of Queen Victoria and the accession of his .present Majesty to the Throne.