Camden New Journal - Obituary: Ellen Noonan

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Camden New Journal - OBITUARY
Published: 6 March 2008

Ellen Noonan

A ground-breaking academic

THE life of renowned counsellor and psychologist Ellen Noonan was celebrated at a memorial service in Hampstead on Thursday.
Ms Noonan, who died before Christmas aged 64 from the lung disease emphysema, worked at both Birkbeck College and the Tavistock Institute.
Friends and colleagues gathered at the Hampstead Parish Church to remember a kind and clever academic, a skilled harpsichord player and an animal lover.
Speakers included her brother Frederick, while her mother, Lois , aged 93 and still running a cultural centre in the United States, also attended.
Ellen was born in the New England town of Vergennes in 1943. Her father Frederick was a farmer. Her mother was the town librarian, retiring aged 88 in 2003.
After reading English in Massachusetts and graduating in 1964, Ms Noonan came to England, and joined the Tavistock.
She worked as a clinical psychologist in the adult department and then used her experiences to work as a student counsellor at City University and then at Birkbeck.
Her works reached a wider audience through her books. Her 1983 work Counselling Young People has become the standard text in its field.
Her expertise also brought her consultancy work – Unilever asked Ms Noonan to help with their recruitment policies and accountancy, and management consultant firm Arthur Andersen used her skills to pick out potential managers from their workforce.
She met her partner Victor at the Tavistock Institute, where they used and improved tests developed by army recruitment and promotion boards.
The couple lived in Tufnell Park Road. Victor predeceased her.
Ms Noonan was an animal lover and had two tortoises called Shelley and Toby.
She loved travelling, visiting 40 countries in 25 years.

DAN CARRIER

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