Beryl Cozens-Hardy, who died on September 25 aged 99, devoted 85 years of her life to the Girl Guide movement and served as its worldwide leader from 1972 to 1975.
Beryl Gladys Cozens-Hardy was born on November 30 1911 in Liverpool, where her father, Edward (who in 1924 became the 3rd Lord Cozens-Hardy), was an engineer. When Edward married his cousin Gladys in 1906 they honeymooned in the Swiss Alps; their car refused to travel uphill in forward gear, so they toured the Alps in reverse.
Educated at St James’s School, Malvern (whose then headmistress was a friend of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, founders of the Scout and Guide movements), Beryl joined the Girl Guides aged 14. She passed the exams for the Foreign Office, and during the Second World War served with the postal censorship department.
The censors’ headquarters were originally in Liverpool, but heavy wartime bombing caused it to relocate to Bermuda, where it acted as Britain’s “listening post” in the Atlantic. All mail being transported by flying boat between North America and Europe had to stop there, and the censors intercepted mail from the United States bound for Germany.
On occasion mail from diplomatic bags would be steamed open, read and replaced. Letters were also tested for secret inks. Beryl Cozens-Hardy — who kept a yacht in the harbour of the island’s capital, Hamilton — was personal assistant to the censorship controller, Charles Watkins-Mence.
After the war Beryl Cozens-Hardy returned to Britain and a job at the Foreign Office, where she assisted in the restoration of British postal services throughout the world.
The Girl Guides, however, remained the great passion of her life. Among her many posts, she served as district commissioner for Liverpool and North Norfolk; county commissioner for Norfolk ; as a member of the Commonwealth Headquarters Council and Executive Committee (1955–67); and Chief Commissioner for England (1961–70). In 1963 she received the Silver Fish, the highest award in British Guiding.
Having been a member of the World Committee since 1966, Beryl Cozens-Hardy assumed the movement’s most senior position in 1972, when she became chairman of the World Committee of the Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts , overseeing a global membership of more than seven million.
She was the first British chairman since the world association had been formed almost half a century earlier in 1928 by the 28 founder nations. On stepping down in 1975, she was granted honorary life membership of the world body; she was also life vice-president of Girlguiding UK.
During her service with the Guides, Beryl Cozens-Hardy travelled to every continent, attending international camps and taking parties of Guides and Rangers abroad. In 1954 she toured the West Indies for nine months to promote the cause.
She was appointed OBE in 1971.
In the late 1940s Beryl Cozens-Hardy went to live at Letheringsett Hall in north Norfolk, near Holt, the house to which her parents had moved from Lancashire in 1932; in 1965 she moved into a nearby house, The Glebe. In Norfolk she was known as an indefatigable fund-raiser for garden charities, and as a magistrate and local councillor.
Beryl Cozens-Hardy was known for speaking her mind, and for her unstuffy approach to life. She once announced to a Guides camp in Lincolnshire: “We must get rid of the idea that we are a bunch of fuddy-duddies in black stockings.” Steadfastness, loyalty, selflessness and dedication to duty were the qualities she most admired — she reserved special praise for what she called “stickability”.
At the age of 64 she canoed up the Amazon with a friend. She was also a keen yachtswoman on the Norfolk Broads.
She was from its early days a trustee of the Lord Cozens-Hardy Trust, which makes substantial annual charitable donations, usually in excess of £100,000 a year.
Beryl Cozens-Hardy never married, and is survived by a niece and nephew.
Having been a member of the World Committee since 1966, Beryl Cozens-Hardy assumed the movement’s most senior position in 1972, when she became chairman of the World Committee of the Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts , overseeing a global membership of more than seven million.
She was the first British chairman since the world association had been formed almost half a century earlier in 1928 by the 28 founder nations. On stepping down in 1975, she was granted honorary life membership of the world body; she was also life vice-president of Girlguiding UK.
During her service with the Guides, Beryl Cozens-Hardy travelled to every continent, attending international camps and taking parties of Guides and Rangers abroad. In 1954 she toured the West Indies for nine months to promote the cause.
She was appointed OBE in 1971.
In the late 1940s Beryl Cozens-Hardy went to live at Letheringsett Hall in north Norfolk, near Holt, the house to which her parents had moved from Lancashire in 1932; in 1965 she moved into a nearby house, The Glebe. In Norfolk she was known as an indefatigable fund-raiser for garden charities, and as a magistrate and local councillor.
Beryl Cozens-Hardy was known for speaking her mind, and for her unstuffy approach to life. She once announced to a Guides camp in Lincolnshire: “We must get rid of the idea that we are a bunch of fuddy-duddies in black stockings.” Steadfastness, loyalty, selflessness and dedication to duty were the qualities she most admired — she reserved special praise for what she called “stickability”.
At the age of 64 she canoed up the Amazon with a friend. She was also a keen yachtswoman on the Norfolk Broads.
She was from its early days a trustee of the Lord Cozens-Hardy Trust, which makes substantial annual charitable donations, usually in excess of £100,000 a year.
Beryl Cozens-Hardy never married, and is survived by a niece and nephew.
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