Blue Plaque commemorates founder of Guernsey's oldest-running residential home

A Blue Plaque has been unveiled to commemorate the woman who founded Guernsey's oldest-running residential home.

Mary Magdalene Edith Louisa Renouf, known as Edith, was commemorated for founding Le Platon Home outside the home on Friday 8 November.

Guernsey's former Bailiff, Richard Collas, unveiled Edith's plaque, describing her as a "modest, generous philanthropist".

Following the unveiling, Richard explained: "Her legacy will continue. It will remind people of her because I suspect that there aren't many people living today who know her [despite being] well known in her lifetime.

"Unlike any other Blue Plaque on this island, it is on a building that is still very much associated with her which makes this plaque very special and absolutely unique."

After seeing casualties from the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) as a child, Edith was moved by the suffering of soldiers and went on to study medicine in Rome and train as a doctor in London.

She later established Le Platon Home on 1 May 1914, aged 50.

Then known as St Peronilla's Home, the facility opened with three women residents before Spanish nuns came to help Edith run the home in 1920.

Nuns from the order of The Sisters Hospitaller of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have continued to move to Guernsey over the past century.

In 1927, Edith donated all her personal wealth to Le Platon, which remains the oldest residential home in Guernsey.

Before her death, Edith was conferred an MBE by King George VI in 1952.

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