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Description:
1943.
Paul Jones Flag, The Lord Mayor of Leeds, Miss Jessie Beatrice Kitson on the left and Lady Mayoress, Miss Elinor (Ella) Gertrude Lupton are putting their stiches on the flag. The two ladies were life long friends, Jessie Kitson becoming the first woman Lord Mayor of Leeds on 18th November 1942, after the death of Arthur Clark on 9th November. Miss Lupton was the daughter of Arthur and Gertrude Lupton who had sadly died when Elinor was just over a year old, having just given birth to Bessie. The children were raised by governesses. Eventually Elinor took a degree in Classics at Cambridge. She ran the family home Beechwood at Roundhay and began to take an active role in public life, serving as a Justice of the Peace, was for forty years on the Board of Leeds General Infirmary, fifty four years as a governor of Leeds Girls High School. Then in 1942 a year as Lady Mayoress. She commented that she and Jessie 'were the two worst dressed ladies in Leeds'. Elinor died in 1979.
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