Elinor was an educationalist and very influential in education. Born in 1910, she went to school in London and became a psychiatric social worker. She then worked in Italy with children who were mostly abandoned or unwanted and after that moved to an institution that helped single mothers. Here, she oversaw changes to the children’s education and the further training of staff. This lead to changes in the childcare system in Italy as she developed a new way of relaxing babies. She also created the idea of the ‘treasure basket’ which was an exploration task for children and has been used in studies at Roehampton. She created changes in the way abandoned children were able to bond with staff, which lead to changes in childcare as a whole.