Daughters of the British Empire  (DBE) is a national, non-profit, non-political, and non-sectarian, philanthropic organization. It was founded in New York in 1909 to give assistance to elderly British and Commonwealth women and men living in America. Today, DBE New York has four chapters whose members are united by their goals of friendship, camaraderie, and service to charity, especially to help seniors regardless of ancestry.

Members are professionals, businesswomen, and homemakers residing in the United States who are of British and Commonwealth (53 countries!)  heritage and ancestry or whose spouses or partners share this ancestry. Non-member guests are welcome to social and fundraising events.

DBE was founded by a remarkable woman who was both a visionary and a fundraising powerhouse. Sarah Josephine Langstaff was born of English parents in Ontario, Canada in 1849. As an infant, she was adopted by Bridgewater Meredith, an Englishman,  and his American wife Caroline Arnold, and was raised in New Jersey. In 1884 she married Dr. John Elliot Langstaff, also a Canadian, and they took up residence in Brooklyn, New York. The family also had a summer home in Stony Brook, Long Island.

In 1915 DBE opened the Victoria Home for the Aged in Staten Island. In 1927 it relocated to a larger property in Ossining, NY. Eventually Victoria Home housed 49 residents, open to all, until it closed during the COVID pandemic in 2020. Since then, the chapters of DBE New York, ever committed to assisting the elderly, have chosen a variety of other non-profit organizations to be the beneficiaries of its fundraising efforts.

Working together, members have formed life-long friendships while holding firm to the principle of DBE’s motto, “Not Ourselves, but the Cause.”