Phoebe Cusden

The blue plaque in Castle Street

Phoebe Cusden (1887–1981) was a socialist, trade unionist, educator, peace campaigner and politician from the English town of Reading. She was continuously active between the 1910s and the 1970s, and was a leading citizen of Reading over the middle part of the twentieth century. Particularly notable was that her local campaigning developed into an effort to broaden her own and her fellow citizens' awareness of issues of international peace and progress. She was a pioneer of local authority nursery education, and a founder of the post-war twin towns movement. Most significantly she developed a twin-town link enabling aid and practical assistance to the German city of Düsseldorf while it was still recovering from the devastation of World War II bombing. The link survives to this day.