Joan Grigg

Joan Alice Katherine Grigg, Baroness Altrincham ( Dickson-Poynder; 11 September 1897 – 1987) was a British organiser of maternity and nursing services in Kenya. She disagreed with the Governor of Kenya (her husband) about race issues and she established medical facilities for all races. Life Grigg was born in the country house called Hartham Park near Corsam in Wiltshire. She was the first and last child of Ann (born Beauclerk) and John Dickson-Poynder, 1st Baron Islington. Her father volunteered his time to a hospital and her mother took an interest in nursing. In 1910, her father became Baron Islington and Governor of New Zealand. During the First World War she became a nurse after being one of the thousands who volunteered for the Volunteer Aid Detachment. Aged nineteen, she was first based in Canterbury where she worked in a military hospital before she moved out to work in a hospital in Rouen in 1917. She went on to work with the French army before the war ended. In 1923 she married a Liberal Member of Parliament Edward Grigg. In 1925 her husband was made Governor of Kenya. He was tasked with merging Uganda, Tanganyika and Kenya but ended up creating fine buildings and a steady administration that attracted investment. He believed that Africans were not ready to rule themselves and his administration took little interest in creating hospitals or health care.