Tributes paid to Dowsby community champion and committed charity supporter Jennifer Jennings
Tributes have been paid to a lifelong supporter of charity and active member of the community.
Jennifer Jennings managed a project of major repairs to Dowsby Hall, her Grade II*-listed Jacobean home and hosted the Dowsby Village Fete there for many years.
She regularly opened the house for Lincolnshire Heritage Open Days, with all proceeds going to charity, and was an active member of the Dowsby community.
Tributes from friends described her as 'unique', 'life-enhancing' and 'a force of nature'.
"Jennifer had an extraordinary focussed and lateral-thinking mind," said husband Anthony.
"She deplored bureaucracy and had no time for humbug or political correctness. But it would be no exaggeration to say that she devoted her life to charity."
Jennifer was a churchwarden in Dowsby and long-time member of its parochial church council. She also oversaw the creation and maintenance of a new playground at the village hall while serving on Dowsby Playground Association committee.
With strong interests in conservation and environmentalism, she was a supporter or member of many charities, including the RSPB, RSPCA, CPRE, British Legion, Salvation Army, Born Free Foundation, and Save Our Parsonages, of which Anthony was director.
Locally, she supported Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Heritage Lincolnshire, and Bourne Civic Society.
Jennifer, who was born in Blackburn in 1945, studied history at Oxford University, and spent a year in the United States researching a book about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at Columbia University before moving to London.
She became a journalist at research organisation Incomes Data Services (IDS), and rose to the position of Editor of the Report, their main periodical.
Developing an interest in politics, conservation and the environment, she was part of the successful Save Ealing Common campaign against the widening of the North Circular Road.
She became an amateur expert in monkeys and small mammals while volunteering at London Zoo, and was an official guide at the British Museum.
Jennifer's funeral was held at St Andrew’s Church, Dowsby, on Saturday, September 3.
