A unique place in the nation's consciousness

Best known for her Body Shop cosmetic chain, she also played a key part in the West Sussex community, acting as patron and trustee for a number of charities and organisations in Chichester and Bognor Regis.

From the beginning of what was to be a business empire, the Littlehampton-born former teacher relied on natural ingredients in plain jars which in the early days had hand- written labels and were refillable.

Her first shop opened in Brighton in 1976 with the help of a 4,000 loan and was painted green to cover up damp walls.

The early patrons were pensioners delighted to recognise old fashioned wartime-style ingredients such as glycerine and beeswax, but younger customers soon followed '“ drawn by her market garden of fragrances and ethical trading practices.

This allowed her to expand and open her first set of Body Shop stores, including one in Chichester.

Crucially she caught the tide of the just-emerging green revolution and its demand for eco-friendly products which allowed her to champion a galaxy of causes from Third World debt to body fascism.

Over the years petitions were put by the cash tills and shop window displays were controversial, challenging and entertaining, tackling everything from sexism to ageism, which kept Dame Anita in the national spotlight.

The Romanian orphanage crisis led Dame Anita to create the Chichester-based charity Children on the Edge in 1990 and she has continued her involvement through the past 17 years, most recently as a trustee.

The Body Shop was eventually floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1984 and saw its value rocket.

In 2005 she announced that she was giving away her 51m fortune via the Roddick Foundation which supports ethical entrepreneurs, before controversially selling Body Shop to French cosmetics giant L'Oreal for 652.3 million last year.

Away from the cosmetics industry Dame Anita also had a hand in publishing, through her company Anita Roddick Publications.

It published a number of books in the 1990s and this decade about ethical business practices and social issues, including her part-autobiography, part-manifesto Business as Unusual.

Anita was appointed OBE in 1988 and made a Dame in 2003.

Earlier this year she took on a new cause. She announced she had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, as a result of contracting hepatitis C during a blood transfusion at a West Sussex hospital while giving birth to her youngest daughter Sam in 1971.

This led her to campaign for more awareness of the virus.