| Mildred Blaxter | |
| Birth Name: | Mildred Lillington Blaxter Hall |
| Birth Date: | 27 March 1925 |
| Birth Place: | Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England |
| Death Place: | Weston-super-Mare, England |
| Education: | St Anne's College, Oxford |
| Occupation: | sociologist and writer |
| Spouse: | Kenneth Blaxter |
| Children: | 3 |
Mildred Lillington Blaxter (née Hall, 27 March 1925 – 29 August 2010) was a British sociologist and writer. According to her obituary in The Guardian, she "shed new light on the causes of deprivation".[1]
She was born Mildred Lillington Hall on 27 March 1925 in Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the elder child and only daughter of Robert Charlton Hall, a bank manager, and his wife, Mildred Violet Hall, née Gleed (1897–1963), an actress.[2] She was educated at St Anne's College, Oxford, and earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1949, and was the first woman to be assistant editor of the student newspaper, Isis.[2]
Blaxter was in her 40s, and her children were at school, when she read Peter Townsend's study of old people's homes The Last Refuge, and decided she wanted to be a sociologist.
In 1967, she enrolled at the newly established department of sociology at the University of Aberdeen, alongside Raymond Illsley, Gordon Horobin, Phil Strong, and Alan Davies, and earned a master's degree in 1972, becoming a medical sociologist.[2]
In 1972, she was appointed to the Aberdeen-based Medical Sociology Unit, as scientific officer.[2] In 1976, Blaxter published her first book, The Meaning of Disability. Her 1982 book, Mothers and Daughters is considered "a classic".[2]
In 1982, when her husband retired, she joined the University of East Anglia, rising to professor of medical sociology in 2000, and was senior sociologist at the University of Cambridge.[1] In 1990, she published Health and Lifestyles.[1] Her last book came out in 2004, Health: Key Concepts.[1]
On 12 October 1957, she married Kenneth Blaxter (1919–1991), an animal nutritionist, and they had three children.[2]
She died of lung cancer on 29 August 2010 at Weston Hospicecare, Uphill, Weston-super-Mare.[2] [1]