Stella Margaret Greenall (born Stella Draycott) (October 8, 1926 - June 18, 2008) was an education activist and adviser to the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 government. Between 1952 and 1975 she worked at the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom (NUS) and during this time was instrumental in the creation of a universal system of grants for higher education students in Britain.

Early life

Born in Sheffield, and a pupil at High Storrs Grammar School for Girls, she attended St Hugh's College, Oxford

St Hugh's College, Oxford

St Hugh's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. It is located on a fourteen and a half acre site on St Margaret's Road, to the North of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 as a women's college, and accepted its first male students in its centenary year in 1986...

.

Work with NUS

Greenall was first involved with NUS as a student in the 1940s. She was then employed as a member of staff in 1952, and in her tenure there developed the union's education and welfare campaigns, especially around student finance. She was known as a formidable negotiator, and this culminated in the introduction, in 1962, of mandatory grants for all higher education students in the UK, a system which was in large part unchanged until the introduction of tuition fees in 1998.

Later life

In 1975, Greenall was persuaded to leave NUS to work as an advisor to the then Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 Education Secretary, Fred Mulley. She also advised his successor, Shirley Williams, until the Conservative victory in the 1979 elections.

In 1998 she cancelled her standing order to the Labour Party as a result of their introduction of tuition fees.

Numismatic Interests

After his death in 1991, Greenhall progressed her husband Philip's work on dividing 17th century tokens between London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

 to publication in the British Numismatic Journal #61 from 1991. She also publicised with it a map in the London Topographical Society Newsletter of November 1993.

Greenhall presented their collection of 870 Venetian coins and 23 medals to the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, a gift which was celebrated with the exhibition 'Venice Preserv'd' which ran from 9 November 1993 to 13 February 1994.

As recently as February 2008 Stella attended the launch of the publication of Norweb Tokens Part VII in Harrow, London

Harrow, London

Harrow is an area in the London Borough of Harrow, northwest London, United Kingdom. It is a suburban area and is situated 12.2 miles northwest of Charing Cross...

. Previously she had published three valuable analyses of 17th century tokens by place and by date.

Greenall died of cancer on June 18, 2008.