TRIBUTES have been paid to Muriel Jobling, founding chairman of Pendleside Hospice, following her death at the age of 93.

Miss Jobling MBE, a pioneering female solicitor at her family law firm, Jobling, Jobling and Knape, died at her Burnley home after a short illness.

She campaigned for a hospice in Burnley and Pendle after her cleaner suffered a facial cancer and she was appalled at the standards of care available locally.

Under the original name Hospice Care for Burnley and Pendle, she established the organisation following two public meetings and a seven-year fundraising effort.

Later joint president of the renamed Pendleside Hospice, she was also a Girl Guides volunteer and became the Commonwealth HQ advisor for the movement.

David Brown, who succeeded her as chairman in 2004, said: "To many people in Burnley, Muriel has been the hospice since its inception. The two words have gone hand in glove for as long as most of us can remember.

"Without Muriel, the hospice would not be where it is today.

"Under her leadership we progressed from a small day care unit in less than ideal surroundings to a 10-bed inpatient unit, day therapy, and a 24-hour hospice at home service.

"One of the ways this success was achieved was Muriel's contact book, which must be the size of an encyclopaedia."

Initially the day care services offered by Pendleside were provided at the former Marsden Hospital. This was replaced in 1997 by its present Reedley headquarters, off Colne Road.

Miss Jobling, whose family firm were later taken over by Southerns, also received a lifetime achievement award from the Law Society following her 70 years service and she was a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire. She was the first female president the Law Society locally and served on the Parole Board and immigration and social security tribunals.

She took her articles with the family firm and was left running the office with her father and a typist when her male colleagues went off to war.

Andrew Buchanan, a retired managing partner at Southerns and an employment judge, who worked alongside Miss Jobling, said: "She was a greatly-respected solicitor in Burnley for many years until her retirement in 1994.

"She was very much a woman in a man's world, when she started out, but she lived to see the profession change to a great extent. Miss Jobling was very much the archetypal family solicitor.

"People say that without her there would not have been a hospice in Burnley and Pendle and I'm sure that is true."

Interviewed by the Lancashire Telegraph in 2015, Miss Jobling, said: "I come from the era where you looked after your clients from cradle to grave.

"You took in everybody and anybody off the street and they remained your friends for years to come."

Her funeral arrangements will be confirmed shortly.