WINIFRED Toynbee spent her life helping others, as a councillor, social worker and friend “trying to do something good”.

She was a well-known spinster in the village of North Hinksey, on the outskirts of Oxford, but her influence spread much farther afield.

Known to her family as Freda, she was born on May 6, 1881, at 41 Portman Square, Marylebone, London, the eldest child of solicitor Percy Toynbee and his wife Alice.

But she put her well-to-do upbringing aside to support others less fortunate than herself.

Her first taste of social work came when she was living with her mother, stepfather – her father had died in 1899 – and eight domestic servants at Howsham Hall, Yorkshire, in about 1911.

Miss Toynbee and a matron were running Beehive, a nearby home for disadvantaged girls aged two to 15.

She came to North Hinksey in the 1920s, buying a house called The Hangings at Harcourt Hill from the widow of English professor Sir Walter Raleigh after his death in 1922.

She renamed it The Fold, built a chapel on to it and encouraged Christians of all denominations to worship there.

She was thinking of becoming a deaconess, but the then Bishop of Oxford, Hubert Burge, persuaded her instead to take charge of 14 “difficult girls”.

According to historian Martin Harris, who has been researching the Toynbee family history, this was possibly a home for “Friendless Girls” at 108 Woodstock Road.

Miss Toynbee’s help for others also extended to serving as a councillor, first on North Hinksey Parish Council from 1934, then Abingdon Rural Council from 1954 and later Berkshire County Council.

She continued as a councillor until ill health forced her to give up at the age of 88 in 1969.

Asked then why she took on council work, she said: “It was a way in which I could help what went on in this area.

“There was no-one else, and no-one wanted to take over so I carried on.

“It’s been very interesting. I’ve done the best I could.”

Miss Toynbee was a governor of North Hinksey School, where she sometimes dressed as Father Christmas, and Botley School.

She is still remembered in the village, with Toynbee Close being named after her and as the donor of one of the new bells installed in St Lawrence’s Church in 1972.

She is buried with her sister Beatrice in the churchyard.

Interviewed by Oxford Mail reporter Michael Biddulph on her retirement as a councillor in 1969, she said: “Yes, I have spent my life helping other people.

“Wherever you go, if you are willing to be useful, there is something you can do.”

Above the article, the Mail summed up her contribution to society with the headline – ‘A Lifetime of Public Service’.