Dame Gillian Mary Millicent Wagner (née Graham; born 25 October 1927) is a British writer, philanthropist and social administrator, and formerly chair of the children’s charity Barnardo’s,^[1] the Thomas Coram Foundation and the Carnegie Trust. She has published biographical and historical works, as well as reports on social care.^[2][3]

Gillian Mary Millicent Graham was born in London in 1927,^[4] 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., Dr Barnardo and the Charity Organisation Society: A reassessment of the Arbitration Case of 1877.^[5]

Her 1979 biography of Dr Barnardo was the ‘first frank account of [his] character and career,^[6] and Thomas Coram, Gent. has been described as ‘a much-needed biography of this early pioneer of children’s charity.’^[7] The exception to this is her most recent book, Miss Palmer’s Diary, a biography of her ancestor Ellen Palmer.

• The Camera and Dr Barnardo (with Valerie Lloyd) 1974, National Portrait Gallery Publications, ISBN 0904017125
• Barnardo, 1979, Littlehampton Book Services, ISBN 0297775618
• Children of the Empire, 1982, Littlehampton Book Services, ISBN 0297780476
• The Chocolate Conscience, 1987, Chatto & Windus, ISBN 070112475X
• Thomas Coram, Gent.: 1668–1751, 2015, Boydell Press, ISBN 9781783270606
• Miss Palmer’s Diary, 2017, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 1788310063