One of the first women to pass the civil service exam, Dame Mary Smieton would go on to xxxx
“There are two sides to her personality. One is her official side, efficiency itself. The second is a warm, human woman, with a great sense of humour. This is a most remarkable combination.”
This is how Labour politician and industrialist Lord Alfred Robens would characterise Mary Smieton, a pioneering diplomat and civil servant whose legacy is hard to overstate.
When Smieton joined the civil service in 1925 – the first year women were even allowed to sit the administrative grade entrance exam – she was one of just three women to be admitted.
By 1933 she had made history again by becoming the first woman to serve as private secretary to a minister – Sir Henry Betterton at the Ministry of Labour. By the late 1930s, as war loomed, she was seconded to the Home Office to help Lady Stella Reading found the Women’s Voluntary Services, a body that would prove indispensable on the Home Front.
During the Second World War, Smieton then worked closely with Ernest Bevin at the Ministry of Labour and National Service. Her deft handling of the recruitment of women into the armed services, factories, and farms was vital to Britain’s war effort.
Smieton would later refer to Bevin as her “hero.” And although like all good civil servants she left her personal politics at the door, she would also later express deep admiration for the Conservative minister David Eccles.
In 1946 Smieton was seconded to the United Nations in New York, just a year after it was founded, where she became the UN’s first director of personnel. She was known for her talent in managing human relations, understanding how to bring out the best in people and nurture their potential.
Along with Dame Evelyn Sharp and Alix Kilroy, Smieton was a leading figure in the Council of Women Civil Servants. The CWCS was formed in 1920 to campaign for women’s causes, such as equal pay and the lifting of the “marriage bar”, which prohibited married women from joining the civil service, and required female civil servants to resign when they married. The marriage bar was not lifted until 1946 for the Home Civil Service, and remained in place until 1973 in the Foreign Service.
Returning to the Ministry of Labour in 1948, Smieton initially led the employment policy department, and went on to head up the safety, health and welfare department. She also served on the Joint Consultative Committee, which fostered dialogue between industry and trade unions. Her contributions earned her a DBE in 1949.
Her most senior role was to follow in 1959, when she became permanent secretary of