{{Short description|British civil servant and historian (1914–2005)}} {{For|Jennifer Hart, an American woman who was one of the perpetrators of a familicide|Hart family murders}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Jenifer Hart''' ({{née|'''Jenifer Margaret Fischer Williams'''}}; 31 January 1914<ref name="obit"/> – 19 March 2005) was an English senior civil servant, historian and academic. In later life she was accused of having formerly been a spy for the Soviet Union, a claim she denied.<ref name="obit">{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1487412/Jenifer-Hart.html|title=Obituary – Jenifer Hart|website=The Telegraph|date=9 April 2005|access-date=21 February 2018}}</ref>
==Biography== Jenifer Fischer Williams was the third of the five daughters of (Eleanor) Marjorie Hay (''née'' Murray, 1880–1961), a descendant of John Murray, third Duke of Atholl,<ref name=":0">{{Cite ODNB |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51089 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |access-date=2023-10-05 |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/51089 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.}}</ref> and John Fischer Williams, a barrister. Her father worked for a time in France, where Hart received her early education at the Lycée Molière and Cours Fénelon in Paris.<ref name=":0" /> She later attended Downe House School, Newbury.<ref name="obit" /> In 1932, she entered Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied history, graduating with a first class degree in 1935.<ref name=":0" /> Her sister was Judith Hubback.
In 1933, she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. Three years later she joined the Civil Service, after achieving better marks in the examinations than any woman had previously done (it still being unusual for a woman even to aspire to a career in the Civil Service).<ref name="guardian">{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/apr/11/guardianobituaries.obituaries |title=Jenifer Hart|author=Nicola Lacey|website=The Guardian|date=11 April 2005|access-date=21 February 2018}}</ref> She became private secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office, Sir Alexander Maxwell.<ref name="Indy"/>
She married the legal philosopher Herbert Hart in 1941 and resigned from the Civil Service in 1945 when he became a Fellow of New College, Oxford. She later became a research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and a Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, where she remained until 1981; she admitted her disappointment at not having become Principal.<ref name="obit"/> Her pupils included Rose Dugdale.<ref name="obit"/> Hart was for a time a university representative on Oxford City Council. Her husband became Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford in 1973.<ref name="Indy">{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jenifer-hart-8623.html|title=Jenifer Hart|website=The Independent|date=9 April 2005|access-date=21 February 2018}}</ref>
==Spying allegations== Although Hart admitted to having had a meeting with spymaster Arnold Deutsch early in her career, she claimed not to have been recruited or passed any confidential information to him or to other Communist Party members. In 1983, an edition of the BBC's ''Timewatch'' programme revealed that she had been interviewed in the 1960s by Peter Wright and others about her political activities, and this led to controversy since her husband was himself a former intelligence officer.<ref name="obit"/>
The BBC revelations about her Communist associations led to an article in ''The Sunday Times'', referring to her as "a Russian spy". She and her husband threatened to sue the paper, which later printed an apology. Herbert Hart had a nervous breakdown shortly afterwards, which was attributed to the stress of the situation.<ref name="Indy"/>
==Personal life and death== Jenifer and Herbert Hart had four children: a daughter and three sons.<ref name=":0" /> Their youngest son, Jacob, was brain-damaged at birth and Hart formed a strong relationship with him.<ref name="guardian" /> Hart's granddaughter Mojo Mathers nee Mojo Minrod, who was made deaf due to oxygen deprivation prior to her birth in 1966, became New Zealand's first deaf MP in 2011.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-02-18 |title=How got Mojo Mathers got her name |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/editors-picks/6441026/How-got-Mojo-Mathers-got-her-name |access-date=2023-09-26 |website=Stuff |language=en}}</ref><ref>Mum helps make dream a reality, 2013 https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8574636/Mum-helps-make-dream-a-reality</ref>
Herbert Hart admitted having little interest in sex,<ref name="guardian"/> and suspected that Jenifer had affairs with Sir Isaiah Berlin and other men.<ref name="obit"/>
With her younger sister, Mariella, Hart inherited her parents' home, Lamledra, in Cornwall, to which her parents had retired.
On 19 March 2005, Hart died of heart failure at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. She was 91.<ref name=":0" />
==Works== *''The British Police'' (1951) *''Proportional Representation: critics of the British electoral system 1820–1945'' (1992) *''Ask Me No More: An Autobiography'' (1998)
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Jenifer}} Category:1914 births Category:2005 deaths Category:Civil servants from London Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members Category:Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Category:Fellows of St Anne's College, Oxford Category:Historians from London Category:People educated at Downe House School Category:Historians of the University of Oxford