Dame Janet Stancomb Graham Stancomb-Wills (25 January 1854 – 22 August 1932) was the first woman mayor of Ramsgate in Kent, an office which she held from 1923–24, and she was also the first person to receive, in 1922, the Freedom of the Town. She was elected President of the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in 1911, decades before any other British Academy even admitted women as full members, and also became President of the School of Architecture at Bristol in 1921. In 1927, she was appointed Justice of the Peace for Kent. She died on 22 August 1932 at East Court, Ramsgate, Kent, aged 78.

Biography

Born Janet Stancomb Graham Stancomb, she was the elder daughter of George Perkins and Catherine Janet (née Lobb) Stancomb, of Aldersgate, London, and niece of the first Baron Winterstoke (Sir W. H. Wills). With the early deaths of her father, and older brother, she and her sister, Yda Emily Margaretha Stancomb (31 January 1856 – 22 September 1936), were adopted by Sir William Henry Wills, and Janet and Yda officially changed their names in 1893 to respectively, Janet Stancomb Graham Stancomb-Wills and Yda Emily Margaretha Stancomb-Wills.

Philanthropy/accomplishments

The Scott Polar Research Institute holds the Janet Stancomb-Wills collection of papers, which comprises correspondence by Dame Janet to or regarding the Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton.

Popular culture

Dame Janet Stancomb-Wills was portrayed by Elizabeth Spriggs in the TV series 'Shackleton'.