EX-WOMEN’S Institute president Dorothy Lush has passed away aged 90.

Mrs Lush, the widow of former Dorset Echo editor Peter Lush, was born Dorothy Brown in Sherborne in May 1920.

She was the only daughter of master baker Frederick John Brown and confectioner Ellen Mary Brown.

She was educated at Clarence House Primary School in Blandford and at the town’s grammar school.

Mrs Lush later worked as a telephonist at the Blandford exchange until she married Peter Lush, who worked at the time for the Royal Army Service Corps supply depot at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.

The couple were married at St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Blandford in July 1942.

During the Second World War, the couple lived at Blandford, Aberfoyle in Scotland and Towyn in Wales.

After the war ended they lived at Victoria Road and at Broadmeadow Road in Wyke Regis.

Mrs Lush became a member of Wyke Regis’ Women’s Institute in 1949, later serving as the local institute’s president and chairman of the Dorset County Federation of WIs.

She also served as a voluntary county organiser for the WI, before retiring from the active list in 1987.

Mrs Lush was appointed as a Weymouth magistrate in July 1973 and retired in 1990.

She had also served as vice-chairman of the domestic proceedings court and as a member of the magistrate’s association.

Mrs Lush was a member of the Verne Prison board of visitors and the prison’s pre-release employment scheme panel.

She was also the South Dorset co-ordinator for the Children’s Country Holidays Fund, helping to organise seaside and rural holidays for very deprived London children from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Mr and Mrs Lush had two children – John, who now lives in Switzerland, and Alison Alexander, who now lives in Devon. She also leaves behind six grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Mrs Lush’s daughter Alison said: “She had a great zest for life. She loved people and was always entertaining.”