Dame Stephanie Shirley CH
These items form a collection capturing key snapshots from Dame Stephanie Shirley's remarkable life. In August 1939 in Vienna, at just five years of age, Vera Buchthal (later known as Stephanie), and her nine year old sister, Renate, were placed on a Kindertransport train headed for London by their very brave mother, into order to escape persecution from the Nazi's. They arrived unaccompanied in the West Midlands and eventually came to stay on the Welsh border in Oswestry. In the audio recording contained within this collection Dame Stephanie looks back at her life and fondly remembers the market day when the Welsh farmers and traders came into the town and where Welsh was the language of the day. Post-war, the young Stephanie displayed a vocational talent for maths and forged a very successful career for herself in the IT industry. She became a pioneer of not only IT but also of women as leaders in business and her contributions to enterprise and society received formal recognition. Dame Stephanie and her husband, Derek had a son, Giles who had autism. After retirement Dame Stephanie devoted her life to 'giving back' through the philanthropic Foundation she established called The Shirley Foundation which has created and supported many pioneering initiatives in autism and IT. In the audio recording, Dame Stephanie talks about projects in Wales she has supported, which have brought about local as well as national strategic-level impact from Denbigh to Cardiff Bay. On 17th June 2017, Dame Stephanie was made a Companion of Honour. On 26th August 2021, a Blue Plaque was unveiled by Oswestry Town Council to mark the town's links to "Dame Stephanie Shirley CH. Refugee, Entrepreneur and Britain's first ambassador for philanthropy"
