Dame Gillian Mary Millicent Wagner ( Graham; 25 October 1927 â 31 December 2025) was a British writer, philanthropist and social administrator, who was the first woman chair of the childrenâÂÂs charity Barnardo's, the Thomas Coram Foundation and the Carnegie Trust. She published biographical and historical works, as well as reports on social care.
Gillian Mary Millicent Graham was born in London on 25 October 1927, the daughter of Major Henry Archibald Roger Graham and Hon. Margaret Beatrice Lopes. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and the University of Geneva, and later did a diploma in social administration at the London School of Economics, and subsequently a Ph.D. Her doctoral thesis was titled Dr Barnardo and the Charity Organisation Society: A reassessment of the Arbitration Case of 1877 ().
Her 1979 biography of Thomas Barnardo was described in a Medical History review as the "first frank account of [his] character and career"; while a reviewer in Seventeenth-Century News called her book Thomas Coram, Gent. "a much-needed biography of this early pioneer of childrenâÂÂs charity". Her book, Miss Palmer's Diary () was a biography of her ancestor, Ellen Palmer.
Wagner died on 31 December 2025, at the age of 98.