Hester Agnes Adrian, Baroness Adrian, DBE (née Pinsent; 16 September 1899 —20 May 1966) was a British mental health worker. In 1965, the year before her death, she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (DBE) for her contributions.

Biography

Hester Agnes Pinsent was born in 1899, the only daughter of Hume Chancellor Pinsent (a relative of the philosopher David Hume

David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...

) and his wife Dame Ellen Pinsent

Ellen Pinsent

Dame Ellen Frances Pinsent DBE , née Parker, was a British mental health worker.She was the daughter of the Rev. Richard Parker and his second wife, Elizabeth Coffin...

 (née

Married and maiden names

A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....

 Parker).

She married Edgar Douglas Adrian on 14 June 1923. He later won a Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 and was President of the Royal Society

President of the Royal Society

The president of the Royal Society is the elected director of the Royal Society of London. After informal meetings at Gresham College, the Royal Society was founded officially on 15 July 1662 for the encouragement of ‘philosophical studies’, by a royal charter which nominated William Brouncker as...

. They had three children, a daughter and mixed twins:

• Anne Pinsent Adrian, who married the physiologist Richard Darwin Keynes
• Richard Hume Adrian, 2nd Baron Adrian (1927-1995)
• Jennet Adrian (born 1927), who married Peter Watson Campbell