Obituary, Philippa Southall, former Barrow Cadbury Trust trustee

Philippa Southall (nee Cadbury) died peacefully, at home, on 14^th May, just 2 weeks short of her 93^rd birthday.  She was a long serving and very active trustee of the Barrow Cadbury Trust from 1959 to  1999 when she decided to retire as her increasing deafness was making meetings difficult.  She was very proud that her two daughters, Anna and Candia, and three of her grandsons, Tim, Harry and Jack have served (or are serving) as trustees.

Her most significant contribution was chairing the Southfield Trust, an independent entity endowed by the Barrow Cadbury Trust to fund the establishment and running of a specially equipped hostel in south London where young men who had been released from Borstal were given the opportunity to adjust to outside life, and thus not reoffend.  It was known as the Southfield Experiment and ran successfully from 1960, entirely funded by the Southfield Trust until 1972 when the Home Office took over the funding of the project.

Philippa had as a young woman been impressed by her grandmother Geraldine’s work with young men and women appearing in the juvenile (under 16 boys and girls) court in Birmingham and retained a keen interest in the Trust’s work with young adults and the criminal justice system to the end of her life.  She was particularly delighted by the impact and influence of the Transition to Adulthood Alliance (T2A) which has led to a growing political and practitioner consensus that young adults require a distinct approach at all stages of the criminal justice system, taking account of their developmental maturity and not just their chronological age.  T2A is currently assisting the MoJ and the Mayor of London to implement significant elements of T2A’s recommendations.