Dorothy Buxton led an unusual and intense life. After an upbringing untypical for a girl in rural Victorian England, she found her voice and her vocation during the First World War, insisting people should be able to read a variety of voices on the conflict engulfing Europe. After the war ended, when hunger and deprivation were widespread in many countries, she blazed a trial as a campaigner for the underprivileged. She was the instigator of the Save the Children Fund in 1919 and became a tireless campaigner for refugees and the oppressed wherever she saw them during the next decades. Her life was led during times of social and political upheaval. After the relative calm of the late Victorian and Edwardian period, she lived through: two world wars and the economic depression between them; the rise of communism, fascism and Nazism; the attack on the class divisions in British society; and the change in the status and rights of women. In these momentous times, Dorothy was a radical voice, refusing to be silenced when she saw injustice.
Hers is an exciting story. The archive of her life is rich and varied, although not complete, as at various times material has been destroyed, both by her own decision towards the end of her life and that of family members after her death. Yet sufficient letters and papers have survived so that her story can be told partly using her own words. This biography is both the story of one woman's journey, and a paradigm of the journey taken by many of her contemporaries.