A WELL-known and popular green-living villager, descended from two legendary Dorset business families, has died aged 63 after a battle with cancer.

Jennifer Claire Eddison Smith (also known as Jenny Eddison) moved to Martinstown in 1990, having been born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) in 1952.

She is widely known for her watercolour and oil paintings, and her role as membership secretary of Dorchester & South Dorset Local Exchange Trading System (LETS), and secretary of the Dorchester & Weymouth Beekeepers` Association.

Jenny’s father Peter Nicoll and wife Anne (née Eddison) moved back to England shortly before Rhodesia declared its Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965.

They settled in Abbotsbury and Peter set up Nicoll World Travel with branches in many Dorset towns.

Her mother was descended from the Eddison family, who manufactured and traded in ‘Eddison Everywhere’ steam ploughs and rollers – an example of which can be seen in Dorchester’s Kings Road play area today, gifted to the town by the Eddison Steam Plant, which was based in Dorchester. Eddison became the largest road building contractor in the UK. Thomas Hardye used to complain of the noise of the works whistle, which sounded early in the morning. A book published recently suggests a family connection to Thomas Edison, the inventor.

Jenny was sent to boarding school at Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire, “an experience which she always said she very much disliked,” says her son Jamie, adding: “On leaving school she attended finishing school in France and then spent a short time as a ski assistant in Switzerland - she was an excellent skier.

Later she moved to London, where she was PA to the managing director of a national electrical wholesaler. While in London she married Ron Smith and had two sons, Jamie and Robert. She also met her best friend Heather Roberts, and together they set up a successful sandwich delivery round called Munchies.

In 1988 she moved back to Abbotsbury to care for her father, and on his death moved to Martinstown permanently.

She ran a bed and breakfast and did gardening before becoming a qualified aromatherapist and nutritionist. In 1997 she met Jeremy Cranmer – and they have been together since.

He said: “Jenny will be best remembered for her kind and gentle nature.

“She believed passionately in many things, and threw herself into the organising and support of causes she deemed important.

“She was passionate about the environment, the natural world and animal welfare. She exhibited her paintings at many local events and always received much praise for her unique painting style.”