Lois Bulley

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Agnes Lois Bulley (2 December 1901 – 27 December 1995), known as Lois, was a British county councillor, philanthropist and political activist from Cheshire. Born in Ness, she came from a wealthy family; her father Arthur Kilpin Bulley made money in a cotton brokerage and later ran Bees Ltd seed company. She trained as a nurse and midwife and worked in London before devoting her life to public service and charity.

Lois supported socialist ideals and worked to improve housing, health care and education. She helped replace slum housing with better homes, served on the Wirral Footpaths and Open Spaces Preservation Society, and in 1948 joined the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board, later chairing the mental health committee and then the board until 1972.

In 1948 she bought her brother's share of the family home and donated it, with a £75,000 endowment, to the University of Liverpool. The house became Ness Botanic Gardens, opened to the public, and her mother was allowed to live there for life. Lois lived at Birch Hey in Ness Holt with Ellen Norman.

Lois joined the Quakers in 1954. After her mother’s death, she set up the Motormart Charitable Trust in 1956 to help people in East Africa, funding schools, colleges and small businesses; one project later became part of the Technical University of Kenya. The trust closed in 1973, but the Lois Bulley Scholarship Fund continues to help Kenyan women study at university.

A lifelong teetotaller, Lois enjoyed theatre, concerts, galleries and ballet in London, and liked travelling around the UK and Europe by campervan. She lived in Chester before moving to Tarvin, where she died in 1995 at the age of 94.

In politics, Lois joined the Labour Party in 1930. She ran for local office in Neston in 1933 and was elected to Cheshire County Council in 1934 for Ellesmere Port and Neston. She also served as Little Neston councillor and later represented Bebington on the county council. She stood for Parliament several times: for City of Chester in 1935 and for Wirral in 1945. She briefly joined the Communist Party in 1936 over the Spanish Civil War. Her family home and Ness Botanic Gardens remain a public resource for recreation, education and research.