Jean Stead - Personal Biography

Personal Biography

Jean Stead was born May 30 1926 at Huddersfield, Yorkshire, only daughter of Harry and Jessie Stead, later of Kirkburton, Yorkshire. Harry was a Royal Artillery regimental officer in both world wars, and in charge of east coast defences in the latter part of the second war. Jessie was a Hobson, her descendants including Joshua Hobson, the Chartist and socialist who led the opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834, and wrote revelatory reports about appalling workhouse conditions in his publication the Northern Star. Her brother Peter was a fighter pilot in the last war and afterwards one of the founders of Yorkshire CND. He was a pioneer of constructivism, working with St. Ives artists and others on his designs and opened the Symon Quinn art gallery in Huddersfield. He and his father were directors of the family building contractors which had built most of the 19th century mills in Huddersfield.

Jean, because of early illness, was educated at home and then at the public girls' boarding school Hunmanby Hall, and later studied economic history at the local college.

Stead has been married for 50 years to John Bourne, who joined the Yorkshire Post after being deputy editor of the University newspaper Varsity, and was later a reporter on The Guardian, before joining the Financial Times, where he was Parliamentary Lobby Editor. They have two children and three grandchildren and live in London and Cornwall.