| AdminHistory | Vera Mary Brittain [1893-1970] was a nurse, writer, pacifist and feminist. She took up an exhibition at Somerville College Oxford to study English literature in 1914, but left the university to take up nursing in 1915. Brittain worked as a nurse throughout the First World War, then returned to Somerville in 1919 to study history. After graduating with close friend Winifred Holtby, she worked as a journalist, lecturer, social activist and novelist. Brittain published her best-selling memoir 'Testament of Youth' in 1933, largely focusing on her experience of the First World War, and went on to write on pacifist and feminist themes throughout her career, including the autobiographical 'Testament of Experience'. She was chairman of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), chairman of the Peace News board and was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Brittain was also made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and received an honorary doctorate from Mills College, California in 1946. |