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The Equal Pay Campaign Committee (1941-1956) (EPCC) was founded in 1941. During the 1920s, a number of women's organisations had begun to campaign for equal pay for women, only for the Depression to see women workers blamed for unemployment amongst men and many trades unions consequently become hostile to the issue. The onset of the Second World War saw this inequality of pay mirrored in the settlements offered by 1941's Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme to those rendered unable to work. This scheme was opposed by women's organisations and action was co-ordinated by the National Association of Women Civil servants and the British Federation of Business and Professional Women. A committee was instituted, firstly on an ad-hoc and then a permanent basis, with representatives from the Women Power Committee, The National Association of Women Civil Servants, the British Federation of Business and Professional Women, the National Council of Women, the Women's Publicity Planning Association and later the Women's Freedom League. The chair was Mavis Tate MP. A select committee was subsequently instituted which overturned the existing legislation and resulted in equal compensation rates being paid in 1943. With this achieved, attention was extending the work to equal pay more generally and a new committee was appointed under the title of the Equal Pay Campaign Committee, with a sister branch in Scotland and an attached advisory council. It also was chaired by Tate, who approached the Joint Committee on Women in the Civil Service to provide basic information from which to proceed. The National Association of Women Civil Servants provided accommodation and services for the new committee and the Association's general secretary, Miss Hart, acted as honorary secretary. It quickly instigated parliamentary debates and a Royal Commission on Equal Pay was announced largely due to its efforts.

The Commission's report was issued in Oct 1946 and the Equal Pay Campaign Committee organised publicity and public meetings to support its findings. A meeting was organised in the Public Hall at Westminster with the co-operation of the Status of Women Committee and a national campaign was organised with Nina Popplewell as the new honorary secretary in 1947. The work for the meeting was to be done by a sub-committee established for this role, which eventually took over the running of the group between meetings of the parent committee. The Committee itself was supported by an Advisory Committee that, unlike the parent committee, could have political aims. Consequently, both the Fabian and the Women's Communist Party were invited to join (although the latter later declined). Activities reached a peak during 1948-1949 with publications and a newsletter being created to increase publicity. A film was also made by Jill Craigie on their behalf: 'To Be A Woman', which was screened in 1951. In 1954 an approach was made to the Local Authorities' representatives on the Burnham Committee regarding government pay in public services through which the Committee influenced the final report. This recommended gradual implementation of equal pay in the Civil Service, a move which was accepted by the National Whitley Council and eventually also applied to women teachers. The following year, the committee took the decision to wind up its activities, a process that was completed in Feb 1956.

The Federation of Women Civil Servants (1916-1932) was founded in 1916 as women became employed in this sector. At the end of the nineteenth century, there was great opposition to women's employment amongst male employees, in contrast to employers' acceptance of a new workforce who worked for lower wages and was less inclined to industrial agitation. This hostility also affected the male-dominated trade unions of the period, especially those concerned with the Civil Service. This meant that women civil servants of the time continued to occupy separate and lower grades than those of men, and a marriage bar prevented them continuing to work after they became wives. It was not until the turn of the century that female trade unions agitation for equal pay and conditions with the male workforce began. The Federation of Women Civil Servants was established in 1916 as an amalgamation of the Federation of Women Clerks and the Civil Service Typists Association. The Federation of Women Civil Servants represented all permanent and established female public servants other then writing assistants. Along with most of the civil service trades unions, was involved in efforts to introduce arbitration and militated for what would become Whitley Councils. After the end of the First World War such action helped bring about a major restructuring of the service. Grades that had been unique to each of the departments were now merged across the entire service to form four basic bands. However, the Federation was vocal in its opposition to the report presented by the official Joint Reorganisation Committee. Despite the statement of the Sex Disqualification Act of 1920 that 'women should have equal opportunity with men in all branches of the Civil Service and Local Authorities', it maintained there should be a separate selection process for women that did not involve the traditional examination and supported lower wages for women working in the same grades as men. When the mixed unions failed to support their position, the Federation withdrew from the staff side of the Council as well as from the Civil Service Alliance, losing its seat on the National Whitley Council in the process. The changes to the organisation of the Civil Service grades resulted in the merger of trade unions that had previously been structured around specific departments. When women were finally assimilated into the general grading system in 1920 as part of the restructuring, the Federation found itself weakened as members left for larger mixed unions that were better represented on the Whitley Councils. In 1928, the rules of membership were changes to allow them to affiliate temporary workers previously covered by the Association of Women Clerks & Secretaries. The resulting situation led to the eventual amalgamation of the two in 1932 and the creation of the National Association of Women Civil Servants.

Fanny Adams (1992-1993) was an anonymous pressure group that was active from around Feb 1992 to Jun 1993. Based on the American 'Guerilla Girls', the group of women art practitioners from diverse backgrounds campaigned to publicly expose inequality and discrimination within the art world and to give women a stronger and more prominent role. Their key protest concerned the low representation of women artists in major London commercial galleries and in magazine reviews. Using the slogan 'Fanny Adams puts you in the picture' they ran a media campaign in the form of flyering, stickering and placing adverts or 'information pieces' in magazines including Art Monthly, Women's Art, Frieze and The Artist's Newsletter. They used statistical evidence to point out women's under-representation in art galleries, as well as 'naming and shaming' key figures in the art world responsible for showing and purchasing artists' work, including Nicholas Serota and Norman Rosenthal. The anonymity of the group allowed them to target individuals and galleries alike, for example: the posters for the 'Gravity and Grace' exhibition of sculpture at the Hayward Gallery was targeted with the text '95% female-free', and in Jan 1992 a thousand greeting cards with the proclamation 'Fanny Adams invites you to reconsider' was sent to key representatives in the visual arts. The Barbican Art Gallery reproduced the Fanny Adams advertisement 'Anthony D'Offay showed less than 15% women artists, or none at all, in 1991', in the exhibition Cutting Edge (Aug to Oct 1992).

The Joint Committee for Women in the Civil Service (JCWCS) (1920-1954) was created in 1920 after a major reorganisation of the Civil Service had taken place. Grading systems that had been structured around each individual department were now merged across the entire service to form four basic bands. Additionally, efforts to introduce arbitration and militated for what would become Whitley Councils for the negotiation of pay and conditions had taken place in which most of the women's civil service trades unions had been involved. However, despite the statement of the Sex Disqualification Act of 1920 that 'women should have equal opportunity with men in all branches of the Civil Service and Local Authorities', the report presented by the official Joint Reorganisation Committee maintained there should be a separate selection process for women which did not involve the traditional examination, lower wages for women working in the same grades as men and the bar against married women should remain. The London & National Society for Women's Service LNSWS were aware that the introduction of equal pay in the Civil Service would have a great impact on the debate in other areas of work. With this in mind, they established the Joint Committee of Women in the Civil Service as a response to the report. It was chaired by Ray Strachey, the LNSWS's president, and was composed of members of the London Society's Employment Committee along with representatives of other women's organisations. It campaigned for financial equality between male and female civil servants as well as the removal of the marriage bar throughout the 1920s but was faced with the backlash regarding equal pay that occurred at the end of the decade when the Depression occurred. However, by the early thirties, it was considered appropriate by several women's organisations to launch a new Equal Pay Campaign, which the JCWCS initiated. In this, they co-operated closely with the National Association of Women Civil Servants and the Council of Women Civil Servants. Public meetings were staged and the group set up a Parliamentary Committee on Equal Pay chaired by the Conservative MP Colonel Clifton Brown. In 1936 they helped introduce a private members bill into the Commons on equal pay which was presented by Ellen Wilkinson and passed with a slim majority before being defeated on its second reading. After the Second World War, activities in the field passed to the Equal Pay Campaign Committee to which it sent representatives. No meetings of the JCWCS were held between 1947 and 1954. It was in this year that the last meeting to wind up its affairs appears to have occurred in the wake of the granting of equal pay in government services.

The National Association of Women Civil Servants (1932-1959) was established in 1932, after a major reorganisation of the Civil Service took place. Grades that had been structured around each department were now merged across the entire service to form four basic bands. Additionally, efforts to introduce arbitration and militated for what would become Whitley Councils for the negotiation of pay and conditions had taken place in which most of the civil service trades unions had been involved. However, the report presented by the official Joint Reorganisation Committee maintained that there should be a separate selection process for women that did not involve the traditional male recruitment method of examination and lower wages for women working in the same grades as men. The Federation of Women Civil Servants had opposed this and when the mixed gender unions failed to support their position, the Federation withdrew from the staff side of the Council as well as from the Civil Service Alliance, losing its seat in the Whitley in the process. The group found itself weakened as members left for larger mixed unions that were better represented on the Whitley Councils. Along with the Association of Women Clerks & Secretaries, it found itself in crisis and the resulting situation led to the amalgamation of the two in 1932 the creation of the National Association of Women Civil Servants. The aims of this new organisation were to campaign for financial equality with male civil servants and to gain recognition for women who were not members of the general grade-based organisations. In the 1920s and 1930s they were closely involved with the campaign for equal pay and consequently had close links with the London and National Society for Women's Service. The group was represented on the Joint Committee of Women in the Civil Service at this time. In the early thirties, they were responsible for a number of public rallies and meetings on the issue as well as presenting evidence to the Royal Commission on the Civil Service in 1929-31. In the same decade they published a journal, Opportunity, which continued until 1940. In 1938 they joined with the Association of Ex-Service Civil Servants to form the Federation of Civil Servants. Chaired by Dorothy Evans, they remained active on the issue of equal pay in the Civil Service into the next decade and were represented on the Equal Pay Campaign Committee after the Second World War. The group also presented evidence to the Royal Commission on Equal Pay which was held after the war as well as holding an investigation of recruitment of the over-40s in the 1950s. However, their influence waned as women continued to join mixed gender unions. The process of dissolution was begun in 1958, there was a resolution on 25 Mar 1959 and this ended with the winding up of the group in 1961.

The Writers' Club [for Women] (1892-fl.1920) was founded in 1892 by the journalist Frances Low at 10 Norfolk Street, near Fleet Street, London. It claimed to be unique in being the only club devoted to women of one profession. Entry, which was limited to 300, was based on evidence of literary or journalistic work. Entrance fee was one guinea for town members and the same amount for the annual subscription. Many well -known authors were members and a quiet room was reserved for writing. The suite included a writing room, dining room, kitchen, cloakroom and two reception rooms. 'At Homes' were held every Friday afternoon when guests (including men) could be invited to tea. No residential accommodation was provided and silence was enforced in the Writing Room. In the early 1900s a group of members, dissatisfied with the Club's lack of physical amenities, broke away under the leadership of Constance Smedley, to form the Lyceum Club. The Writers' Club was still in existence in the 1920s.

The National Advisory Centre on Careers for Women (1933-1995) was founded in 1933. During the First World War, the London National Society for Women's Suffrage opened a Women's Service Department to find openings for volunteer workers as well as taking the lead in training women for war work. At the end of the war the parent organisation became the London National Society for Women's Service (LNSWS), and the section became the Women's Employment Department, continuing its work until 1922. It concentrated on the problems of women left unemployed by the returning male workers. The Carnegie Trust, which funded its activities for a time, made attempts to integrate it with the Central Bureau for the Employment of Women, but this failed and the department closed due to financial problems. In 1933, this function was largely taken over by a new group called, initially the National Federation of Organisations Concerned with the Employment and Training of Women, soon renamed the Women's Employment Federation. It maintained close connections with the LNSWS, and shared premises with them until 1939 with the LNSWS president Ray Strachey as its first organising secretary. It too was funded by the Carnegie Trust but this time its object was to co-ordinate the work of organisations dealing with women's employment, to prevent overlapping and to assist each in its individual work by offering opportunities for consultation and co-operation between them. The constituent organisations were all concerned with the employment and training of women, such as: the Association of Assistant Mistresses, the Association of Head Mistresses, the Midwives Institute, the National Association of Women Pharmacists, the Council of Women Civil Servants, as well as women's schools and universities. Between them they decided on the election of the executive committee and the policies of the group. The group contained an Advisory Department that collected information on careers and openings that were then available to members and the public, as well as organising advice, publications and speakers. Between 1935 and 1940 it received an average of 3816 enquiries annually and in 1939 was asked to compile a national register of women workers. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the group moved to Bedford College. When its main organiser, Ray Strachey, died in 1940, others took over the work and it was her friend, Irene Hilton, that remained the Federation's organisation secretary from 1948 until 1971, when it became the National Advisory Centre on Careers for Women. This remained its name until 1991 when it became Careers for Women. It ceased operating in 1995.

The Women's Employment Publishing Company Ltd (1913-1974) was established by the Central Employment Bureau for Women around 1913-1914 in order to deal with its publications. The Central Bureau had been issuing the twice-monthly journal 'Women's Employment' since 1899 and other occasional publications in connection with their work and the Women's Employment Publishing Company continued this work from the head office in Russell Square. In addition to the main periodical, the press was also responsible for the publication of numerous editions of 'Careers (later, and 'Vocational Training'): 'A Guide to the Professions and Occupations of Educated Women and Girls', 'The Finger Post', 'Hints on how to find work' and 'Open Doors for Women Workers'. The directors just before the outbreak of the Second World War were H John Faulk (Chair), Miss ER Unmack (Managing Director) and Miss AE Hignell (secretary). Despite problems caused by this disruption and a decline in the number of readers in this period, the company survived and continued publishing 'Women's Employment' until 1974. The Bureau seems to have ceased functioning at around the same date.

The Women's Engineering Society (WES) (1919-) was founded in 1919 and largely financed by Lady Margaret Eliza Parsons, who acted as its first President while Dame Caroline Haslett served as first General Secretary between 1919 and 1929. Lady Moir acted as President between 1928 and 1930, followed by Verena Holmes between 1930 and 1932, Amy Johnson (1934-1937) and Caroline Haslett (1939-1941). The WES emerged from the Engineering Committee of the National Council of Women. This had been set up to look at the position of women employed in munitions. In spite of the restoration of Pre-War Practices Act, compelling many employers to dismiss women workers, enough women remained in engineering and enough women wanted to enter the profession to make the WES worthwhile.

The Society was initially based in London, but other branches soon followed in Newcastle, Manchester and the Midlands. The objectives of the organisation were: to promote the awareness of engineering as a prime creator of wealth in society and the contribution women can make to it; to promote the training and education of women engineers, to ensure women engineers can influence the process of policy formation and decision-making in government and other organisations; to foster good practice in the employment of women engineers in order to enable them to progress equally with male colleagues; to provide a network of members and support.

The first Annual Conference was held in Birmingham in 1923. The Council met four times per year. Additionally, the society launched the Verena Holmes Lecture Fund in 1969 to encourage young people to join the engineering profession and to give career advice. The Caroline Haslett Memorial Trust awards university scholarships. The official organ of the society, since 1919, was 'The Woman Engineer', published quarterly.

The WES launched and kept close links with the Electrical Association of Women. In 1925 the Society, with outside help, organised the Conference of Women in Science, Industry and Commerce held at the Empire Exhibition, Wembley. In 1934, the WES persuaded the International Labour Organisation to amend the Washington Convention on the issue of women working during the night.

Ira Rischowski (fl 1899-1977) was born in Germany in 1899 and trained as an engineer receiving a Dipl. Ing. VDI, a German degree which corresponds to the English B.Sc. She was an active member of the German anti-Nazi and socialist group 'Org.' in the 1930s and after having been shortly imprisoned in 1935 she emigrated to Britain with her husband. When she came to Britain she worked as a draughtswoman and planning engineer at Tuvox Ltd., Middlesex from 1942 to 1944, but then transferred to James Gordon Ltd, London where she made a career from draughtswoman to Head of Projects Department in 1956 and where she worked until her retirement.

She became an Association member of the WES London Branch on 27.11.1939, a full member in 1949 and an Honorary member in 1977. She served on the London Branch Committee, was a member of Council from 1948, was Chair of the Equal Pay Sub-Committee and of the Training and Opportunities Sub-Committee.

Women in Libraries (1979-1990) was founded in 1979, relatively late in the history of women working in libraries. In 1909 a survey found that 41 percent; of librarians were women. By the 1960s, however, 70%; of the profession were female. Despite this rise, women's wages in the area remained lower than those of both their male colleagues and women in other professions. In 1979, Sheila Ritchie undertook research into the positions and pay of female librarians and produced an article entitled '2000 to 1: a sex oddity' which was published in 'Assistant Librarian' in Mar 1979. It contained a statistical analysis of figures on women in the field and highlighted the fact that though women staffed most public libraries, it was male staff that dominated senior positions in the profession. In response to this, and together with Sherry Jesperson, Avril Rolph, Jane Little, Jane Allen and Briony Vitow, she helped found the first feminist group for women working in this field. In 1979 a meeting of 20 women was held at the Polytechnic of Central London and an inaugural conference was held in the spring and attracted over 200 women that arrived at three principle points. These were: firstly, the rights of women as employees in the profession and as library users were not being given proper attention; secondly, a movement was needed to put this right; thirdly, it should not be restricted to feminist librarians, but open to all women, staff and users. Following a meeting in Sep 1980 organised by Avril Rolph and Sherry Jespersen, a group of around 10 women, initially known as 'The Feminist Library Workers' Group', held regular meetings to organise a conference, which was held in Feb 1981 at the Polytechnic of Central London. It was based on two main themes: women's position as workers in libraries and women's role in libraries as those both choosing and using books. Workshop sessions were held to discuss related topics. Sheila Ritchie and Jane Little (one of the organising group) were guest speakers. At the end of the meeting, a group was formally brought into being, entitled 'Women in Libraries', and a majority vote decided that it should be open to women only.

This group was initially put forward as the Library Association Group for Women's Interests and Education but was rapidly changed to Women in Libraries. The subscription was £5 and a newsletter entitled WiLPower was issued on a regular basis. Quarterly meetings were held, though changes were soon made to the structure of the group, which would move it from being a traditionally structured organisation to a looser collective framework. Initially it was also decided not to affiliate to the Library Association so as not to exclude non-members of the Association from the group. Their attempts to be accepted as a Group of the Library Association (LA) failed because of their policy of restricting membership to women only and because of the perception that their aims were political rather than professional. In order to be able to affiliate, they opened up membership at all members of the Library Association and other interested parties. They then redefined themselves as a body in existence to provide a forum for members to identify and work towards the solution of problems common to women in libraries and the library profession by several means. Those were: collecting and disseminating information relevant to the personal development of women in libraries and the profession; working with members to identify continuing educational needs for women library workers and provide appropriate educational opportunities; to provide mutual support and assistance to women library workers; to provide advice to library workers of either sex who felt they had been subject to sexual discrimination; and to promote the involvement of women in the Library Association.

Through the national management and new local sub-groups, they continued to encourage writing on women in libraries and held workshops which were later published as well as running career development programmes and monitoring of stereotyping in library stock. Additionally, they were active in raising and discussing areas of interest such a job-sharing that later became official practice, later became official practice. It ceased its work in the early 1990s.

Alice Anne Burbury ([1844-1911]) was born in Yorkshire, the eldest daughter of Thomas Edward Taylor, and became the wife of Samuel Hawksley Burbury, the mathematician and lawyer, on 12 Apr 1860. The couple had four sons and two daughters before Alice Anne Burbury seems to have become interested in women's suffrage. Her name first appears on the annual subscription lists of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1898, where it remained until 1902. However, her interest in the issue predated this membership as this series of letters was written by her to leaders of the movements for women's education and women's enfranchisement between 1872 and c.1893. At some point in her career, she evidently stood for election to a School Board and a committee was formed to support her, but she appears not to have succeeded in her efforts on this occasion. She survived her husband who died in Aug 1911.

Anna Davin (b 1940), daughter of Winnie and Dan Davin, grew up in Oxford, where her parents worked for the Oxford University Press. She married Luke Hodgkin in 1958 and had three children. From 1966 to 1969 she was a History student at Warwick University. In 1968 she and other women members of the Socialist Society at Warwick, including American exchange students, started a Women's Liberation Group. Along with non-student members from nearby Coventry the group campaigned on general issues such as equal pay, reproductive rights and better access to university education, and called for a crèche to be established for women working and studying at the university. Anna was closely involved in the History Workshop movement during the 1970s. She was a founding member of the editorial collective of History Workshop Journal, in 1976, and was to continue as an active editor for over thirty years. In 1970 she moved to London and started a History PhD at Birkbeck College. This was initially about the lives of late 19th century working-class women in London, from childhood to old age, but when eventually submitted, in 1992, its focus was on children; the book Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London 1870-1914 followed in 1996. In London she joined the Stratford Women's Liberation Group (and helped produce their issue of Shrew), and also a feminist study group in Pimlico (the 'History Group'), and for a time helped in the Women's Liberation office. She was active in a pioneering community history group ('People's Autobiography of Hackney'); in the Feminist History Group; and also in 'The Public Library', a short-lived attempt to establish a library of political ephemera. Her best-known publication is an article called 'Imperialism and Motherhood', (History Workshop Journal, no 5, 1976). Anna taught women's history for many years: London evening classes in the 1980s; as a visiting lecturer at Binghamton University, New York for six weeks a year between 1979 and 2002; at Middlesex University as a part-timer and research fellow in the 1990s; and twice as maternity cover on the Women's History MA at Royal Holloway, University of London. She subsequently taught summer school students from the University of Michigan and an annual Oral History course at the Institute of Historical Research; and returned to adult education, teaching London history for the Continuing Education department at Birkbeck College.

Alice Helena Alexandra Williams (1863-1957) was born on 12 Mar 1863 at Castel Deudraeth, in Wales. The youngest of 14 children of David Williams MP, she had no formal education. During the first World War, Alice Williams worked for the French Wounded Emergency Fund. With friends, she set up the Signal Bureau in Paris, to give advice to those searching for the injured, the missing and refugees. The French government subsequently awarded her the Medaille de la Reconnaissance Francaise. A keen supporter of the Women's Institute movement, she became the president of the Deudraeth group and gave the ground and raised funds for the building of Britain's first Institute Hall at Penrhyndeudraeth. Williams was elected to the National Federation of Women's Institutes, as their first Honorary Secretary and then to the Executive Committee that superceded it in Oct 1918. When this position was abolished to make way for that of paid General Secretary, Williams once more took the role until she resigned to devote more time to her other position of founding editor of its journal, 'Home and Country' in Oct 1919. She retired as editor in 1920. In addition to her work with the Women's Institute, Alice Williams was also responsible for the setting up of branches of the Lyceum Club in Paris and Berlin. In 1919 she was the founder and the first chair of the Forum Club in London. She also took the chair from 1928 until 1938. Her watercolours were frequently exhibited, and she was a member of the Union des Femme Peintres et Sculpteurs, Paris and of the Union Internationale des Aquarellistes, Paris. Williams was a writer specialising in poetry and verse that commemorated special occasions. She also wrote a number of published plays and pageants such as 'Aunt Mollie's Story' (1913), 'Britannia' (1917), 'Britain Awake: An Empire Pageant Play' (1932) and 'Gossip' (1935). She was made a bard under the name of Alys Meirion in 1917 and received a CBE in 1937. She died on the 15 Aug 1957, aged 94.

Alice [née Weaver] Hemming (1907-1994) was born in London on 18 Sep 1907. The family moved to Canada where Alice received her education. She graduated from the University of British Columbia and began working as a journalist on the Vancouver Province newspaper. Whilst working as a journalist, Alice interviewed Harold Hemming, a banker by profession who was leading a delegation of British headmasters visiting universities in Canada. Alice returned to London in order to work with Harold Hemming, translating books written by the French economist, André Siegfried. Alice and Harold Hemming were married in 1931. Following her involvement in war work in London, Alice returned to Vancouver in 1940 and began working as a journalist again. She was employed to write two regular newspaper columns and presenting a daily radio broadcast, all in support of the British war effort. Alice was also involved in giving lectures and created the information department of the Canadian National Film Board, based in Ottawa. In 1944, Alice returned to London with her two children and dedicated her time and energy to the women's movement. Alice was vice-president of the International Alliance of Women and the Women's Council for many years. She was president of the British Commonwealth League, renamed the Commonwealth Countries League in 1963, for forty years 1953-1972, and was also the Commonwealth Countries League's representative to the Status of Women Committee. Furthermore, Alice was responsible for establishing the Commonwealth Countries League annual fair from her own home in Primrose Hill, which developed into a major international event working to raise funds to provide education for girls in Commonwealth countries. It was for this work that Alice received an OBE in 1975 as well as honours from Canadian universities. Alice Hemming died on the 28 Mar 1994.

Antonella Marchioness of Lothian (1923-72004) was born Antonella Reuss Newland in Rome in 1922; later she was known as 'Tony Lothian'. Tony was the daughter of Major-General Sir Foster Reuss Newland (1862-1943) KCMG, CB and Donna Nennella Salazar (also known as Agnes Carr; Tony's mother divorced Newland in 1928 and married William Carr). During the Second World War Tony worked as a nursing auxiliary before marrying Peter Francis Walter Kerr (1922-2004) KCVO, 12th Marquess of Lothian in Apr 1943. They had two sons and four daughters. The couple spent most of their married life at Monteviot House and its surrounding 18,000-acre estate near Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders. They also owned Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire. They later retired to Ferniehirst Castle, near Jedburgh. Tony became a journalist, working as a current affairs correspondent for the Scottish Daily Express from 1963-1975. She also became a freelance presenter and deviser of television and radio programmes. She became a Fellow of the Institute of Journalists, and won the Templeton Award in 1992. She founded the Woman of the Year Lunch at the Savoy Hotel in 1955 with Lady Georgina Coleridge (see obituary Guardian 10 Apr 2003) and Odette Hallowes GC (née Churchill) and was its president until 1969. The annual lunch was an early attempt at networking, honouring many women selected for 'excellence in a chosen career'. The profits went to the Greater London Fund for the Blind. Tony identified herself as a Christian feminist. Tony also worked with the Royal College of Nursing as Vice President between 1960-1980 , and the Royal College of Gynaecologists. She was also a patron of the National Council of Women in the United Kingdom. She lost an eye in 1970 as a result of cancer, sporting a black eye patch thereafter. In 1993 she published the biography of her friend Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian astronaut, called 'Valentina, First Woman in space. Conversations with A Lothian'. Her husband died in Oct 2004, succeeded by their elder son, Conservative politician Michael Ancram. She received the OBE in 1997, for services to women and blind people, and became a Dame of St Gregory in 2002. Tony died on 6 Jan 2007, aged 84.

A Muriel Pierotti (1897-1982) was born in Bristol in 1897 and her family moved to London when she was ten. Her mother joined the Women's Freedom League shortly after moving to London and involved her daughters from an early age. Muriel's father, a committed socialist, worked as a Post Officer sorter before working in the Assistant Controller's office at the PO headquarters at Mount Pleasant. Muriel was educated at elementary schools, leaving her London Secondary School at 18 for a wartime position in the Civil Service. Muriel qualified as a secretary and worked for some years at a hospital school in the country, run by Mrs Kate Hervey, a friend of Mrs Despard. When the hospital school closed, Muriel moved to the National Union of Women Teachers in 1925, becoming Assistant Secretary in 1931. When Miss Froud retired as General Secretary in Sep 1941, Muriel replaced her and remained in post until the NUWT closed down. She wrote its history 'The story of the National Union of Women Teachers' in a pamphlet published in 1963. Muriel Pierotti was closely involved with a number of women's campaigning organisations throughout her life. She was a member of the Women's Freedom League, before 1918, along with her sister Lilian (who died in 1956) and knew both the Pethick-Lawrences and Charlotte Despard. She remained with the organisation throughout the 1920s and was active in the campaign for equality of suffrage until 1928 when it was granted. In 1925, she was the author of a pamphlet entitled 'What We Have and What We Want!' She was also an active trade unionist and involved with the Equal Pay Campaign which took place during the 1940s and 1950s. She continued to engage with the issues affecting the status of women throughout the next few decades, becoming a member of the Joint Standing Committee of Women's Organisations in the 1940s to consider questions relating to the civil and political status of women. Muriel was also involved in organising the production of Jill Craigie's film 'To Be A Woman' which was co-sponsored by the NUWT and the Equal Pay Campaign Committee. She was also a member of the Status of Women Committee from 1945 to 1978.

Agnes Maude Royden (1876-1956) was born on 23 Nov 1876, the youngest daughter of the ship-owning Conservative MP from Liverpool, Sir Thomas Bland Royden (later first baronet of Frankby Hall, Cheshire). She was educated first at Cheltenham Ladies College, then at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford from 1896-1899, where she met Kathleen Courtney and Ida O'Malley. She obtained a second-class degree in modern history.

After graduating she spent three years working with the Victoria Women's Settlement in Liverpool. In these years around 1900 Royden's political views moved away from her family's Conservatism until she joined the Labour Party after the First World War. In 1905 Royden undertook parish work in South Luffenham for the Reverend William Hudson Shaw, whom she had met at Oxford. She became friends with him and his second wife Effie. They remained close friends, Royden marrying Shaw after Effie's death. The marriage took place just two months before Shaw's death in 1944. Shaw enabled Royden to lecture in the Oxford University Extension Delegacy Scheme, for which he also lectured. Royden was one of the first female lecturers for the Scheme. In 1908 Royden became a regular speaker for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). She was appointed to its executive committee in 1911, edited its newspaper 'The Common Cause' between 1913-1914 and wrote 5 pamphlets for them. From 1910, she supported the Tax Resistance League and was the first Chair of the Church League for Women's Suffrage. From 1911 was a member of the executive committee of the London Society for Women's Suffrage (LSWS). By 1912 she was giving well over 250 speeches a year and ran 'Speakers classes' for NUWSS and LSWS. In 1913 she was also appointed president of the Chester Women's Suffrage Society, vice president of the Oxford Women Students' Suffrage Society. 1912 was an important year for the future of the women's movement. It was in this year that the Labour Party made support for female suffrage part of its policy for the first time. When, that same year, the NUWSS launched the Election Fighting Fund policy, which promised support to any party officially supporting suffrage in an election where the candidate was challenging an anti-suffrage Liberal, the effect was to effectively support the Labour Party. The women's suffrage campaign had long been associated with the Liberal Party and had always been non-party, welcoming the left and right wing into its numbers. After this step, however, some members, such as Eleanor Rathbone, left the organisation in opposition to this step. Royden, however, supported the move and was one of the speakers at the joint meeting of the NUWSS and the Labour Party held in the Albert Hall in Feb 1914. Later in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, Royden found herself in conflict with many in the NUWSS, which under the leadership of Millicent Fawcett, had thrown itself enthusiastically into support for work to support the war effort. At the end of 1914 she became the secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation with other Christian Pacifists. In Feb 1915 she resigned as editor of 'Common Cause' and gave up her place on the executive council. She had intended to attend the women's peace congress in the Hague in 1915 that year but was unable to do so when travel via the North Sea was forbidden. None the less, when the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was established there, she became the vice-president. Despite this, even outside of the NUWSS, she campaigned for the vote for women through the National Council for Adult Suffrage and when a limited franchise was granted in 1918, she was asked to address the celebratory meeting organised by the older group at the Queen's Hall. In the post-war period, her main interests were concerned with the role of women in the Church. Between 1917-1920 Royden became an assistant preacher to Dr Fort Newton at the City Temple. Though a committed Anglican, as a woman she was not normally permitted to preach in the Church of England. In 1920 she was granted an interdenominational pulpit at the Kensington Town Hall through the Fellowship Services. This position was soon transferred to the Guildhouse in Eccleston Square and she continued to preach socially radical sermons from there for some years, on issues such as unemployment, peace and marriage. Percy Dearmer and Martin Shaw assisted her. In turn Royden continued to assist Hudson Shaw in his parish St Botolph's Bishopsgate in the City of London, including a controversial appearance to preach in a service on Good Friday 30 Mar 1923.

In 1922 Royden was invited to stand as a Labour candidate for the Wirral constituency but declined for the sake of her work in the church. Royden made several preaching tours across the world from the 1920s to the 1940s and undertook large-scale article writing: She visited America in 1911, 1923, 1928, and 1941-1942. The 1928 visit was part of a world tour that included Australia, New Zealand and China. Whilst in 1928 and 1934-1935 she visited India with Dame Margery Corbett Ashby and met Ghandi. Royden continued her work for peace, through her 'Peace Army' proposals of 1923 and her support of the League of Nations. People such as Rev 'Dick' Shepherd and Herbert Gray in turn supported Royden. Royden resigned from the Guildhall post in 1936 to concentrate her efforts in this area until 1939. In 1939, however, Royden renounced pacifism believing Nazism to be a greater evil than war. In 1944 she married Hudson Shaw. After 1945, she was mainly occupied by writing and radio broadcasts on religion. Her last book was A Threefold Cord 1947 an autobiographical work. Royden died at her home in London on the 30 Jul 1956.

Amelia (Millie) Scott (1860-1952) was born to Syms Scott and Ellen Nicholls on 16 Jan 1860. She spent much of her later childhood living with her aunt, and grandmother (both called Amelia Nicholls) following the death of her father in 1870, as her mother was unable to support six children. Amelia Scott and her three sisters all remained unmarried and Amelia and her sister Louise lived together in Tunbridge Wells for many years. Their background was one of a middle class family who were not quite as affluent as they once had been. Amelia Scott was involved in several organisations such as the Tunbridge Wells branch of the National Council of Women (originally called the National Union of Women Workers), which she established in May 1895. She was a member of this organisation for thirty-five years, serving as its honorary secretary. She worked as Treasurer for the Tunbridge Wells branch of the Women Citizens' Association and as an honorary secretary and Chair for the Leisure Hours Club - an association set up for working girls. She was also involved with the Tunbridge Wells branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, serving as vice president, and the Christian Social Union. Between 1918-1924 Amelia served on the Legal sub committee of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. She also served on the Provisional Executive Committee of this organisation by representing the National Council of Women. Amelia Scott was also a Poor Law Guardian for many years, Chair of the Infant Life Protection Committee, Member of the Kent County Mental Deficiency Committee and Director of the Women's Common Lodging House Company, Tunbridge Wells. Amelia Scott was the author of 'Women of Sacred History', a study concerned with the women of the bible and 'Passing of a Great Dread', a history of the poor law as well as writing a number of articles, pamphlets and speeches for the organisations she was involved in. She died in 1952.

Barbara Andrews (née Campbell) (1829-), was the wife of Canon Andrews of St. Peters Cathedral, Adelaide Australia. Barbara emigrated to Australia in the 1840s.

Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland (1901-2000) was born in Edgbaston, West Midlands in 1901 and attended Malvern Girls' College and Abbey House, Netley Abbey, Hampshire. Her father was killed in Flanders in 1918 and the family subsequently moved to London where her mother opened a dress shop in Kensington. Cartland wrote the first of a long series of novels, Jig-Saw, at the age of 20 while she was working as gossip columnist for the Daily Express. It was published 1925 and was followed by a play, 'Blood Money'. In 1927 she married Alexander George McCorquodale but was later divorced from him, going on to marry Hugh McCorquodale, a cousin of her first husband, in 1936. During the Second World War, Cartland became Chief Lady Welfare Officer for Bedfordshire (1941-45). She was later a political speaker for the Conservatives, county councillor for Hertfordshire, chair of the St. John Council, deputy president of St. John Ambulance Brigade, and president of Hertfordshire branch of Royal College of Midwives as well as founding the National Association of Health in the 1960s. Cartland was also involved in campaigns for better conditions and salaries for women in nursing and improvements in the status of the elderly. In 1991 she was made Dame of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) and by 1993 had sold over 600 million copies of her books, making her name synonymous with the romantic novel. She was also famous for her love of pink chiffon clothing and small dogs. She died on 21 May 2000, after a short illness.

Betty Heathfield (1927-2006) was born into a mining family in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. She attended Chesterfield Girls' School and won a university scholarship, which she did not take up for financial reasons. Instead she left school at sixteen to work as a secretary in a local engineering company and became interested in left-wing politics, joining the Young Communist League. In 1953 she married Peter Heathfield, a miner who became the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers. She was active in her own right in labour politics in Chesterfield, as a member of the Co-Operative Women's Guild, and a founding member of the Derbyshire Women's Action Group. She became one of the spokeswomen and leading members of the national Women Against Pit Closures organisation during the miners' strike of 1984-1985. Alongside Anne Scargill she led the support campaign for miners' families - organising financial aid, holidays for children, and touring the USA and Canada to raise support for British mining communities. She also took part in an oral history and writing project to document the experiences of women during the action. After the end of the strike, Heathfield studied for a politics degree at Lancaster University. She was also involved in a Women's Co-operative Guild Age Exchange Theatre Company project on the history of the Guild. After suffering from Alzheimer's disease she died on 16 Feb 2006.

In 1957 Elizabeth (Betty) Betty Vernon was in correspondence with several individuals in relation to the completion of her biography of Philippa Fawcett. She sent typescript copies to a group which included Vera Douie, then the librarian of the Fawcett Society, as well as to Miss Philippa Strachey, the secretary of the Fawcett Society and Dame Margaret Cole. They wrote back to her to point out minor corrections to make to her manuscript.

Philippa Strachey (1872-1968), known as Pippa, was born in 1872 to Lady Jane Maria Strachey and Major Richard Strachey. She was brought up first in India, where her father was a leading figure in the administration, and then in London, where the family moved in 1879. Her mother was active in the movement for women's suffrage and both Philippa and her siblings were encouraged to contribute to this work. In 1906 she became a member of the executive committee of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and the following year she was elected the secretary of its successor the London Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1906 she joined the London Society for Women's Suffrage, succeeding Edith Palliser as secretary the following year. It was also in 1907 that she joined her mother Lady Jane Maria Strachey in organising what became known as the 'Mud March' at the instigation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and which went from Hyde Park to the Exeter Hall to demand the vote. During the First World War she was deeply involved in various war works, from being the secretary of the Women's Service Bureau for War Workers to participating as a member of the Committee for the London units of the Scottish Women's Hospital from 1914-1919. This war work began her lasting involvement with the issue of women's employment and she remained the secretary of the Women's Service Bureau after 1918 when it became concerned with helping women thrown out of jobs on the return of men from the Front. She remained there until its dissolution, which came in 1922, caused by a financial crisis in the parent organisation. However, subsequently Strachey helped to found a new group to fill the gap, becoming the secretary and then honorary secretary of the Women's Employment Federation. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, family problems took up much of her time as she nursed both her mother and her brother Lytton until their deaths. However, all through this time she remained active in the London Society for Women's Service and when it was renamed the Fawcett Society in 1951, she was asked to be its honorary secretary. It was that year that she was awarded the CBE for her work for women. She subsequently was made a governor of Bedford College. Increasing ill-health slowed the pace of her work and blindness finally forced her to enter a nursing home at the end of her life. She died in 1968.

Betty Jerman (fl 1950-fl 1999) was a journalist and author. She was a fashion and interior design writer on The Guardian from 1950-1956. In 1960 she sparked the correspondence that would lead to the formation of the National Women's Register (NWR) by writing an article for the Manchester Guardian on how boredom affected young mothers' creativity and opportunities for making friends. When NWR was granted charitable status in 1980, Betty was appointed one of the three trustees - a position she held for nineteen years. In 1971 she wrote a series of articles for The Guardian on the case of Pauline Jones, who was sentenced to 3 years in Holloway prison for the abduction of baby Denise Weller. Jerman's articles prompted a 'Free Pauline Jones' campaign. Jerman continued to be interested in cases of 'baby-snatching', amassing many press cuttings on the subject from 1971-2002. She is the author of various publications, including 'The Lively-Minded Women', which charts the history of the first 20 years of the NWR, and 'Kids' Britain'.

Barbara McCrimmon (fl 1992) was a well-known American book and manuscript collector. She wrote extensively in American library theory and philosophy and was a regular reviewer in a number of periodicals. In 1992 McCrimmon donated 77 letters written by Barbara Leigh Bodichon to The Women's (previously Fawcett) Library along with three articles written by McCrimmon.

Barbara Bodichon (1827-1891) née Leigh Smith was born in 1827. Her father was a progressive educationalist and MP for Norwich. Bodichon was the cousin of Florence Nightingale. Bodichon was educated at Westminster Infants School, a pioneering 'ragged school' and later at Bedford College. Thanks to her father Bodichon was financially independent. In 1852 Bodichon opened Portman Hill School in Paddington, a non-denominational, non-conventional school of mixed social class, which she ran together with Elizabeth Whitehead. Bodichon campaigned for women's rights, collecting signatures for the Married Women's Property Bill in 1856 and writing 'Women and Work' in 1857. Also in 1857 she married Eugene Bodichon a French doctor. She helped finance 'The Englishwoman's Journal' and was co-proprietor, with Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes of the Journal from 1858 to 1864. Bodichon was on the committee of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society from 1861 to 1886. Bodichon also read the first papers on suffrage in 1865, supported the first suffrage petition in 1866 and became Secretary of the Suffrage Committee in 1867. Bodichon fought for higher education for women and helped Emily Davies to found the college that later became Girton. Barbara Bodichon died in 1891.

Georgina Agnes Brackenbury (1865-1949) studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1888-1900. She was a member of both the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Women's Social and Political Union. She was arrested in Feb 1908, after taking part in a raid on the House of Commons and was sentenced to six weeks in Holloway Prison. After her release, she continued in militant suffrage activities and was imprisoned for a month in 1912 for smashing windows. She was the daughter of Hilda Brackenbury (1832-1918) and sister of Mary Brackenbury (1866-1946), who were both also involved in militant suffrage activity.

Mary Berenson (1864-1945) was born in 1864 to Hannah Whitall (1832-1911) and Robert Pearsall Smith (d. 1899). Both were evangelical preachers in New Jersey and Philadelphia. In 1885, Mary married Francis Benjamin Conn Costelloe, a barrister, in London. They had two daughters, Ray (b. 1887) and Karin (c. 1889). After the death of Benjamin in 1899, Mary moved to Italy to marry the art historian Bernard Berenson in 1900 and Hannah, who had moved to London in 1888, took care of Ray and Karin in London. Later, Ray was to marry Oliver Strachey.

Rachel Strachey (1887-1940) was born in 1887 to Mary Pearsall Smith (later Berenson) and Benjamin Francis Conn Costelloe. Mary Pearsall Smith was the daughter of Hannah Whitall Smith, the American evangelist and religious writer. Rachel's sister was Karin Conn Costelloe (c.1889). After the death of her husband in 1899, Mary moved to Italy to marry Bernard Berenson in 1900 and her mother Hannah, who had moved to London in 1888, took care of Ray and Karin in London. Ray was educated at Kensington High School and then read Mathematics at Newnham College Cambridge (1905-1908). Her cousin, Ellie Rendel (1885-1942), daughter of Elinor Rendel, oldest sister of Oliver Strachey, was a close friend during her school and college days, and particularly when they became involved in the early suffrage activities. In 1909, Ray and Ellie went to Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia where M Carey Thomas, Ray's second cousin, was President. Ellie later worked for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Society (1909-1912) and for the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit in the Balkans (c.1916-1917). In 1911, Ray married Oliver Strachey, a civil servant. This was his second marriage. They had two children Barbara (1912-1999) and Christopher (1916-1975), who later became a computer scientist. Ray was a tireless campaigner for women's rights. She was a close friend of Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the law-abiding suffragists. In 1915, she was a Parliamentary secretary for the London Society for Women's Suffrage. During World War One, she was a Chair for the Women's Service Bureau and fought for women to be allowed to do all types of war work. From 1930-1939, Ray was the first Chair of the Cambridge University Women's Employment Board and also helped to found the Women's Employment Federation in 1935. She was editor of the feminist newspaper The Common Cause. Ray also stood for Parliament as an Independent candidate in 1915, 1922 and 1923, but was unsuccessful. She was the political private secretary to Viscountess Nancy Astor MP (1929-34). Ray had many publications including: The World at Eighteen (1907); Frances Willard. Her Life and Work (1913); The Cause, (1928); Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1931); Careers and Openings for Women (1935). She died on 16 Jul 1940.

Barbara Halpern Strachey (1912-1999) was born in 1912 to Ray and Oliver Strachey. Her brother Christopher (1916-1975) was a computer scientist. Barbara's education began at St Felix School in Southwold, followed by a period in Vienna during 1928-1929. She read Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 1930-1933. Whilst on a voyage to Australia in 1933, she met her first husband, Toby Hullit, a Finnish purser, and married him when they reached Adelaide. They settled in England and, in the following year, their son, Roger Sven Allen, was born. This marriage ended in divorce in 1935 and Barbara then married Wolf Halpern. Unfortunately, he was killed in an airplane crash in 1943. Barbara worked as a radio producer for the BBC for over forty years. She wrote articles and books including: 'Remarkable relations : the story of the Pearsall Smith family' (London : Gollancz, 1980); 'Ray Strachey - a memoir' in W Chapman and JM Manson, eds., Women in the Milieu of Leonard and Virginia Woolf: Peace, Politics and Education (1998). She died in 1999.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929) was born in Suffolk in 1847, the daughter of Newson and Louisa Garrett and the sister of Samuel Garrett, Agnes Garrett, Louise Smith and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. The sisters' early interest in the issue of women's suffrage and commitment to the Liberal party were heightened after attending a speech given in London by John Stuart Mill in Jul 1865. Though considered too young to sign the petition in favour of votes for women, which was presented to the House of Commons in 1866, Millicent attended the debate on the issue in May 1867. This occurred a month after she married the professor of political economy and radical Liberal MP for Brighton, Henry Fawcett. Throughout their marriage, the future cabinet minister supported his wife's activities while she acted as his secretary due to his blindness. Their only child, Philippa Fawcett, was born the following year and that same month Millicent Garrett Fawcett published her first article, on the education of women. In Jul 1867, Millicent Garrett Fawcett was asked to join the executive committee of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and was one of the speakers at its first public meeting two years later. She continued her work with the London National Society until after the death of John Stuart Mill in 1874, when she left the organisation to work with the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage. This was a step which she had avoided taking when the latter was formed in 1871 due to its public identification with the campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Fawcett, despite her support for the movement's actions, had initially believed that the suffrage movement might be damaged by identification with such controversial work. However, the two groups later merged in 1877 as the new Central Committee for Women's Suffrage and a new executive committee was formed which included Fawcett herself. Her influence helped guide the group towards support for moderate policies and methods. She did little public speaking during this period but after the death of her husband in 1884 and a subsequent period of depression, she was persuaded to become a touring speaker once more in 1886 and began to devote her time to the work of the women's suffrage movement. In addition to women's suffrage Millicent Garrett Fawcett also became involved in the newly created National Vigilance Association, established in 1885, alongside campaigners such as J Stansfeld MP, Mr WT Stead, Mrs Mitchell, and Josephine Butler. In 1894 Fawcett's interest in public morality led her to vigorously campaign against the candidature of Henry Cust as Conservative MP for North Manchester. Cust, who had been known to have had several affairs, had seduced a young woman. Despite marrying Cust's marriage in 1893, after pressure from Balfour, Fawcett felt Cust was unfit for public office. Fawcett's campaign persisted until Cust's resignation in 1895, with some suffrage supporters concerned by Fawcett's doggedness in what they felt was a divisive campaign. In the late nineteenth century, the women's suffrage movement was closely identified with the Liberal Party through its traditional support for their work and the affiliation of many workers such as Fawcett herself. However, the party was, at this time, split over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. Fawcett herself left the party to become a Liberal Unionist and helped lead the Women's Liberal Unionist Association. When it was proposed that the Central Committee's constitution should be changed to allow political organisations, and principally the Women's Liberal Federation, to affiliate, Fawcett opposed this and became the Honorary Treasurer when the majority of members left to form the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage. However, in 1893 she became one of the leading members of the Special Appeal Committee that was formed to repair the divisions in the movement. On the 19 Oct 1896 she was asked to preside over the joint meetings of the suffrage societies, which resulted in the geographical division of the country and the formation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. She was appointed as the honorary secretary of the Central and Eastern Society that year and became a member of the parliamentary committee of the NUWSS itself. It was not until the parent group's reorganisation in 1907 that she was elected president of the National Union, a position that she would retain until 1919. By 1901, she was already eminent enough to be one of the first women appointed to sit on a Commission of Inquiry into the concentration camps created for Boer civilians by the British during the Boer War. Despite this, her work for suffrage never slackened and she was one of the leaders of the Mud March held in Feb 1907 as well as of the NUWSS procession from Embankment to the Albert Hall in Jun 1908. She became one of the Fighting Fund Committee in 1912 and managed the aftermath of the introduction of the policy, in particular during the North West Durham by-election in 1914, when other members opposed a step that effectively meant supporting the Labour Party when an anti-suffrage Liberal candidate was standing in a constituency. When the First World War broke out in Aug 1914, Fawcett called for the suspension of the NUWSS' political work and a change in activities to facilitate war work. This stance led to divisions in the organisation. The majority of its officers and ten of the executive committee resigned when she vetoed their attendance of a Women's Peace Congress in the Hague in 1915. However, she retained her position in the group. During the war, she also found time to become involved in the issue of women's social, political and educational status in India, an area in which she had become interested through her husband and retained after the conflict came to an end. She remained at the head of the NUWSS when the women's suffrage clause was added to the Representation of the People Act in 1918 and attended the Women's Peace Conference in Paris before lobbying the governments assembled there for the Peace Conference in 1919. She retired in Mar 1919 when the NUWSS became the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship but remained on its executive committee. She also continued her activities as the vice-president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, to which she had been elected in 1902, for another year. After this she became the Chair of the journal, the 'Women's Leader', and appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1925. It was in that year that she resigned from both NUSEC and the newspaper's board after opposing the organisation's policy in support of family allowances. She remained active until the end of her life, undertaking a trip to the Far East with her sister Agnes only a short time before her death in 1929.

Bayard Simmons (fl.1906), author, poet and contributor to 'The Freethinker', was a member of the Men's Social and Political Union for Women's Suffrage. He was the first man to go to prison for the cause of women's suffrage, spending two weeks in Brixton Prison in 1906.

Charlotte Despard (1844-1939) was born in 1844, the daughter of Captain William French and Margaret Eccles. In the 1850s her father died and her mother became mentally ill, resulting in the child being sent to London to live with relatives. Her early experiences in London led her to become politically radical at a young age but she was not active until after her marriage in 1870 to Maximilian Despard a wealthy Anglo-Irish businessman (one of the founders of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank), who was, like her, a rich radical Liberal. Charlotte supported Home Rule for Ireland from 1880. In 1874 Despard published her first novel, Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow which would be followed by several more in rapid succession. Her husband died in 1890, and she emerged from the resultant depression through involvement in social work at the Nine Elms Mission in Battersea where she would eventually move the following year. From 1894-1903 she acted as a poor law guardian in Vauxhall, taking on more responsibility as a school manager in 1899. In this period her political views became more marked, supporting the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and eventually being nominated as one of their representatives at the second International in 1896. This association continued until 1906 when she became a member of the Independent Labour Party. For a short time she was involved in the Union of Practical Suffragists and then the Adult Suffrage Society that called for votes for women of all levels of society. However, these affiliations were later to go into abeyance when she became a leader of the militant suffragette movement alongside the Pankhursts. Her initial reaction to the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was hostile due to their willingness to accept a socially limited franchise and in 1906 she spoke out against them at the first meeting of the Women's Labour League. It was the former Labour Party organiser Teresa Billington-Greig who finally convinced her to become a member and in the summer of 1906. After the resignation of Sylvia Pankhurst and the arrival of Emmeline and Christabel in London, Despard became the Joint Secretary of the WSPU with Edith How-Martyn, while also becoming active on a practical level. In Feb 1907 she was arrested during the demonstration from the 'Women's Parliament' held in Caxton Hall to the Houses of Parliament and was sentenced to three weeks in prison. However, in the Spring of 1907, rifts began to grow between Despard and the Pankhursts when it became clear that WSPU election policy meant that the group were effectively supporting Conservative candidates as a means of opposing Liberal candidates. Despard, How-Martyn, and Anne Cobden Sanderson jointly sent a message to the Independent Labour Party conference to state that they would not take part in any by-election where a Labour Party candidate was standing. This was immediately publicly repudiated by Emmeline Pankhurst.

In Sep 1907, the WSPU's annual meeting was cancelled by the Pankhursts and the group's constitution changed without consultation of members. However, Despard and Billington-Greig together organised another conference for the intended day and effectively began the Women's Freedom Party that still took a militant approach but concentrated on non-violent illegal methods. The following year, she spent five months touring the country in a caravan. 1909 began with her being arrested for leading a delegation to speak to the Prime Minister, but was discharged after five days for ill health. The following month she was officially elected president of the Women's Freedom League. In 1911 she was one of those who organised resistance to the census which took place that year as well as becoming the editor of 'the Vote'. The sheer range of her activities caused some colleagues to question her focus as leader of the WFL and dissent began to grow, resulting in the resignation of Billington-Greig and attempts to oust her from the leadership of the organisation after the failure of the Conciliation Bill in 1912. In the event, it was the majority of the executive board that resigned and Despard remained in place and attended the Budapest Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance the following year in this capacity. When war was declared in 1914 the Women's Freedom League rejected the pro-war stance of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the WSPU which both suspended their suffrage campaigns.

Instead, in 1915, Despard joined the Women's International League, the National Council for Civil Liberties, the Women's Peace Crusade and the No Conscription Fellowship and in 1917 she resigned as President of WFL to concentrate on working for the Women's Peace Crusade. Also in 1917 she attended the convention of the British Socialists in Leeds in 1917 at which the Revolution in Russia was welcomed and where she was elected to the provisional committee of the Workers' Socialist Federation. After the Qualification of Women Act was introduced in 1918, Despard stood as the ultimately unsuccessful Labour candidate in Battersea in the post-war election, having resigned as the leader of the WFL.

Despard had been interested in Irish politics from a campaigning visit to Dublin in 1909. She was strongly in favour of Home Rule, but after the death of the hunger-striker Terence Macswiney she committed most of her time and money to the cause of communism in Ireland. She moved to Ireland in 1920 and thereafter only visited London briefly each summer. She lived and worked with Maude Gonne in Dublin to create a reception centre for displaced people as well as campaigning against the British policy of internment. Despard formed the Women Prisoners' Defence League, which was later banned. Despard also paid for the establishment of a factory intended to give employment to Republicans who were economically discriminated against. In 1921 she moved to Roebuck House a mansion outside Dublin that would frequently be raided by the police looking for IRA members who found a safe house there. However, she later resigned from Sinn Fein as a response to the factionalism of its members. She visited the Soviet Union in 1930, and took the decision to move from Dublin to Northern Ireland in the wake of an attack on the Irish Workers' College, which she had financed for some time. In moving to Belfast she handed Roebuck House to Maude Gonne. In the mid-thirties, her finances were becoming strained and she was declared bankrupt in 1937. Nonetheless, she continued to fight Fascism until her death as a result of a fall at her home in Nov 1939.

Dorothy Hill (1909-1999), otherwise known as Chili Bouchier, actress, was born in Fulham 12 Sep 1909. Her parents were Alice and Frank Boucher and Chili was one of four children, her siblings being Jack, Hilda and Irene. Chili's first public appearances were performing in shows put on by Madam Cleaver Lee's School of Ballet (1920-1922). Her first position was working at Harrods Department store where she was paid fifteen shillings a week to model clothes from the Ladies Wear Collections. It was whilst working at Harrods that she acquired the nickname of Chili as one colleague thought she resembled a singer who sang a popular song - My Chili, Chili, Bom Bom. When Chili was dismissed from Harrods for a minor indiscretion, she started a course to learn how to become a film star. Chili was soon selected to appear in a series of short sound pictures made by Phonofilms at Clapham studios, London in 1927. Her career was established when she appeared as a bathing beauty in 'Shooting Stars' in 1927. In Sep 1929 she married fellow actor Harry Milton (1900-1965), whom she had met on set whilst filming 'Chick', they eventually divorced in 1937. Her first 'talkie' was 'The Call of the Sea', shown in 1930. In 1931 Chili Bouchier was involved in the remake of 'Carnival', a film which had been instrumental in encouraging her to enter the film industry. Whilst under contract to British and Dominions Studios, Chili Bouchier was loaned to Paramount based at Elstree Studios. During 1934 Chili reverted to using her original name Dorothy but changed back to using Chili due to demand from her fans in 1935. In 1935, Chili Bouchier signed to Warner Brothers at Teddington Studios. The success of the Warner Brothers film 'Gypsy' culminated in Chili receiving a personal visit from Jack and Harry Warner who invited her to Hollywood to make some films there. Unfortunately, Chili Bouchier did not settle and returned to England in 1938 while still under contract to Warner Brothers. They did not renew her contract six months later. Having received no offer of any other film contract, Chili Bouchier turned her attention to the theatre and formed her own repertory company, The Chili Bouchier Players, in 1939. Edmund John Cuthbertson, otherwise known as Teddy Joyce, was Chili's next love and fiancé. The Canadian born bandleader, whom she had first met in 1935, died suddenly in 1941, after suffering from cerebro-spinal fever. During the Second World War, Chili went to Alexandria and Cairo where she performed in various plays staged by the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). In 1946 Chili Bouchier married Peter de Greef, a fellow actor she had met a few years previously. They separated a few months later, divorcing in 1955. Chili Bouchier spent most of her career during this time in the theatre. After her separation from Peter de Greef, Chili Bouchier moved into a flat in Dolphin Square, (Pimlico, London) where she met an old friend again, Bluey Hill, who also lived at Dolphin Square. Bluey Hill was an Australian film director, with whom she lived for twenty-three years. They eventually married on 1 Apr 1977. Chili Bouchier continued working during the sixties and seventies, appearing in 'The Mousetrap' in 1971 and 1974 and in 'Harvey' with James Stewart in 1975. Incidentally, James Stewart appeared in one of Chili's all time favourite films, the Glen Miller Story. The other two favourites being Sunset Boulevard and Gone with the Wind (Copies of these films were owned by Chili and were regularly viewed). In 1995 Chili Bouchier appeared on television and radio as part of the celebrations for the 'Centenary of Cinema'. She also appeared on 'Barrymore'. Chili died three days before her ninetieth birthday on 9 Sep 1999.

Cornelius Gronow (fl 1917) arranged a visit of Sylvia Pankhurst to the Rhondda in 1917.

Catherine Thackray was born in May 1922, the daughter of Margery Sharp and one of eight children. The family moved to France before returning to Cambridge where Catherine attended the Perse School. As the Second World War broke out, she began work at the Fulham Day Nursery where she worked or a short time until she moved to working at Barclays' Bank and then on to Southwark Day Nursery. However, she went on to enlist in the ATS as a Specialist Wireless Operator and was posted to Harrogate, Shenly, Lancashire, Derby and then Aldermaston. She left the service in 1943 and then went on to study at the London University Collage, obtaining a diploma in Social Sciences. In 1944 she joined the Battersea Labour party, going on to join the Central London branch of the Fabian Society three years later. In 1949 she married Lawrence Thackery and completed her training as a psychiatric social worker at the Tavistock Clinic. In 1949 the couple moved to Surrey. Catherine Thackery began work at the Woking Child Guidance Clinic the next year before they moved once again, this time to Huddersfield in 1951. There she became a volunteer at the local Citizens' Advice Bureau and the local secretary of CND. In 1953 she was elected the councillor for the Milnsbridge ward. When her first child was born in 1956 she continued her work for another fourteen months before resigning her position. After this she was a house worker for 12 years before returning to teaching when the youngest of her children went to school. She taught at the local technical college before working at the new secondary modern. Her research into the lives of seventy married women was published in 'Education' in 1968. She remained active in the anti-nuclear movement until the end of her life and in 1984 she was arrested during a protest outside of Greenham Common. She died in 1997.

Daisy Dobson (fl 1927-1950) was the friend and private secretary of Dr Agnes Maude Royden, the pacifist and Christian preacher. Dobson accompanied Royden on her lecture tours of the world, sending reports home to friends and family.

Dorothea Edith Belfield (fl.1933-1940) was admitted to the order of deaconess in 1933 and appointed to the Parish of Mere (Diocese of Salisbury) in Feb 1933. She was known as the Rev. Deaconess Belfield. Information extracted from Mere parish magazines indicates that while the Order of Deaconess was recognised in 1920, the office was still contentious. In May 1934 Dorothea was on a month's sick leave. She left the parish in Jan 1935. Her health had not, apparently, been good. She worked unpaid and had anticipated staying for two years and then moving on to work of 'wider scope'. She was hard working and conscientious. Her vicar was the Rev. Ian Cameron. Dorothea Belfield published pamphlets in the 1940's for the London Society for the Equal Ministry of Men and Women in the Church. Little information on her has been traced.

Dorothy Mary Elliott (1897-1980) was born in 1897 and educated at the University of Reading where she graduated in Modern Languages. During the First World War she was involved in Munitions work in Birmingham in 1916 and it was here that she first became involved in the trade union movement. After this experience, Elliott attended classes at the London School of Economics where she met the trade unionist Mary MacArthur. It was through MacArthur that she was introduced to the National Federation of Women Workers for which she was to become an organiser in Woolwich Arsenal in 1918. From 1921 she transferred her organising skills to the National Union of General and Municipal Workers before moving to Lancashire in 1924 to continue her work there. When Margaret Bondfield became a Member of Parliament, Elliott was appointed the union's Chief Woman Organiser from 1924 to 1925 and then again in 1929 to 1931. In 1931 she became the Chair of the National Labour Women's Conference and a member of the Standing Joint Committee on Industrial Women's Organisations. She also worked with the Women's Electrical Association in this period and became a regular speaker at the Labour Party's Women's' Sections and the Co-operative Women's Guild. By 1939 she was Chief Woman Officer for the Trade Union movement as a whole. During the Second World War Elliott was one of the representatives sent by the TUC sent to attend the Committee of Woman Power and was a member of the Women's Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Labour from 1941. Throughout her career she had been an advocate of equal pay for women and of the married woman's right to work. It was this perspective that she brought to her post-war work on the committee concerned with the admission of women to the senior foreign service and the Women's Consultative Committee dealing with the resettlement of women in civilian life. It was in 1946 that she was granted a sabbatical by the union to become Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Houseworkers and it was in this capacity that she attended the International Labour Organisation's meetings in Hamburg to discuss the conditions of domestic workers the following year. Initially set up to improve the status and conditions of women working in the home, under her guidance the National Institute expanded into an education and training centre which set examinations and granted diplomas, becoming known as the Institute of House Craft (Training and Employment). She continued this work until 1958 when she retired from the organisation but did not give up her trade union work until 1961 when she finally retired. Elliott died in 1980.

Dorothy Foster Place (1886-1976) [née Abraham] was born in 1886 at Lancaster Avenue in Liverpool. She spent her early childhood in New Brighton, the Wirral. She was initially educated at home by governesses, until 1898 when she went to Wallasey High School, followed by Skipton Girls' High School in 1900. In 1904 she enrolled at the University of Liverpool where she studied Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics - moving on to King's College in London after her father's decision that she should take the examinations of the Institute of Chemistry there. During this period she shared her mother's interest in the women's suffrage movement and both women joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Dorothy was arrested and sent to Holloway Prison after taking part in a window smashing incident at Harrods, but was freed at her trial on grounds of insufficient evidence. After failing her Chemistry examination she went to Studley Agricultural College. During the First World War she worked on various farms until her father bought her her own farm in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire. Here she met and married Tom Place with whom she had four children: Ullin, Dorothy, David and Milner. She took great pleasure in extensive holidays in Europe and North Africa. Dorothy Foster Place died in 1976.

Dorothea M Barton (fl.1890-1933) was born Dorothea Zimmern sometime towards the end of the nineteenth century. She became a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in the early part of the twentieth century and was university educated, receiving at BA before 1912. By this time, she had also become active in the Women's Industrial Council, many of whose members were also active in the suffrage movement and which worked closely with the NUWSS and Women's Freedom League in the area of improved pay and conditions for female workers. Together they argued that when women achieved the vote, employers would be forced to improve their situation and that, on the other hand, enfranchisement itself was the best way of improving industrial conditions for women overall. With this in mind, The Women's Industrial Council set about acquiring information about industrial problems and Barton, as its Assistant Secretary, undertook an investigation of the wages and conditions of women in 1912. In Jun 1912 she gave a paper to a conference on the prevention of destitution which was later published as 'The Wages of Women in Industry' by the council. She published a series of articles on the issue through the Council, including, 'Clothing and the Textile Trades: Summary Tables' (with LW Papworth) and 'The Trade Boards: Table of Minimum Rates', in 1912. She also wrote 'The Civil Service and Women', for 'The Political Quarterly' in 1916, and 'Women's Wages' in 1912 for The Women's Co-operative Guild in 1912.

She appears to have become interested in the Fabian Society around 1913, and her longstanding interest in the suffrage movement in America led her, in 1915, to become a member of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. In 1915 she was also the Honorary Secretary of the Training School Committee of the Council. By 1914 she had become a Lady Inspector of the Board of trade and possibly a member of the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries the following year. She appear to have married her husband WJ Barton, the headmaster at the College in Epsom, around 1915 or 1916, moving form London to the Headmasters' House there at this time. Her interest in the issues of women's equal pay and conditions appears to have subsisted after the war and she was asked to deliver a paper on women's wages to the Royal Statistical Society in 1919 while the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship published her article 'Equal pay for equal work' that same year. It is likely that Barton was the first person to deposit an archive with the Fawcett Library (now The Women's Library) on 15 Mar 1933, when she presented her 'notes on women's wages etc' to them.

Dorothy Evans (1889-1944) was born in Stockport in 1889 and was educated at the North London Collegiate School. She went on to train as a Gymnastics Mistress at Dartford College before going on to study at Chelsea Training College. It was there, in 1907, that she became a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). After her training was complete, she became the group's organiser for the Birmingham and Midland Counties area in 1909, but was arrested that same year for attempting to confront a cabinet minister and stone throwing. After paying a fine, she was released but was re-arrested for failing to pay a dog tax as part in protest at women's taxation without the benefit of political representation. This time, in 1910, she was imprisoned for her actions. During the following four years she was arrested nine times for various offences, went on hunger-strike and was force fed a number of times. When the Pankhursts and other leaders of the WSPU were threatened with arrests and fled to France, Evans was left in charge of the London offices and then became a liaison officer between Paris and London. She was subsequently posted to Bristol and then to Northern Ireland where she was arrested in possession of explosives. She remained on remand in various prisons in the country until 1914 when she was released under the general amnesty offered to members of the WSPU at the outbreak of war. During the Great War she was appointed a gymnastics teacher at Shrewsbury College. However, she continued as a speaker for pacifism throughout the period. In 1915, she was one of those refused a pass to attend the Women's Peace Conference in the Hague but was permitted to travel to the United States after the war to take part in a peace campaign there. On her return, she became a Women's International League organiser and later occupied the same position in the Women's Freedom League. It was in the wake of the First World War that her only daughter was born to her and her partner Albert Emil Davies. The pair chose not to marry due to the legal disability brought on women by marriage at the time and she remained a supporter of the rights of unmarried mothers throughout her life. It was also in the inter-war period that her work with civil service unions began, beginning with her appointment as a representative of the National Association of Women Civil Servants on the Consultative Committee of Women's Organisations in 1921. It was through the National Association that much of her campaigning for financial equality with male civil servants was done and through it she became a member of the drafting committee of the Consultative Committee the following year. In the 1920s and 1930s, Evans and the NAWCS (known as the Federation of Civil Servants from 1938) were closely involved with the campaign for equal pay and consequently had close links with the London and National Society for Women's Service. She also carried out work concerned with the status of women, becoming a leading member of the Six Point Group from its creation in 1921 and establishing the sub-committee on housewives issues which would become the Married Women's Association. She additionally collated a memorandum on the position of women in Britain and the Dominions which was incorporated into the World Report on the Status of Women by the League of Nations and lobbied that organisation to ratify an Equal Rights Treaty through the 1920s and 1930s. On the outbreak of the Second World War she continued to work for pacifism and for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom of which she had been Secretary since 1923. However, her main concerns at this time was campaigning on issues such as female volunteers in the Civil Defence Services receiving two-thirds the man's pay and compensation rate provided for by the Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act of 1939. She was involved in the Equal Compensation Campaign from 1941 to 1943 and became a member of the Equal Pay Campaign Committee in 1944, to ensure equal pay in the Civil Service. She was also active in the Women for Westminster group at this time and the drafted the Equal Citizenship (Blanket) Bill of 1944. Her death, when it came, was sudden. In Aug 1944 she travelled to Glasgow to speak at a meeting. The following day she was taken ill and was operated on immediately but died two days later at the age of 55.

Vera Douie (1894-1979) was born in Lahore in 1894, the daughter of a British Civil servant in India. She was educated at the Godolphin School, Salisbury before going on to complete her studies at Oxford University before degrees could be taken by women. She subsequently became a library assistant at the War Office Library from 1916 until 1921, the year in which she became the indexer of 'The Medical History of the War'. She later became the librarian of the London National Society for Women's Service at the Women's Service Library at Marsham St, London between 1926 and her retirement in 1967. It was Douie who, during this period, laid the foundations of its transformation into the Fawcett Library (now The Women's Library). She was active in the women's movement throughout her life and was particularly involved in the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. During the Second World War she was a fervent campaigner for equal rights and published 'The Lesser Half' on behalf of the Women's Publicity Planning Association in 1943, examining the 'laws, regulations and practices introduced during the present war, which embody discrimination against women'. After the war, she also published Daughters of Britain: an account of the work of British women during the 2nd World War (1950). When she retired in 1967, she was awarded the OBE for her life's work. She died in 1979.

Dorothy Shelagh Brown (fl. 1942-1945) was held as a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp in the Far East during World War Two, 1942-1945. During this time, she wrote a diary of her daily experiences in this environment.

Miss Elizabeth Dowse (fl 1824-1828) set off in Sep 1826 to spend a winter at Nice with a friend sent there for the 'recovery of her health'. She appears to have travelled with a Mrs Athersole and the latter's niece, Miss Nevill. While presumably based in the South of France for two years, Miss Dowse travelled at various times in Switzerland and Italy. On 21 Sep 1828, the steam packet George IV brought her 'once more to old England'. The following day she states that she was 'at home at my father's after an absence of four years'. She must have been living in France 1824-1828.

Ethel DM Robson (c.1895-1954) was born around 1895. She trained in domestic Science prior to the First World War and subsequently became a teacher at Harrogate Girl's High School. She retired in 1953 when she moved to Winchester. She died in 1954.

Edith Eskrigge (1872-1948) was the sixth child of Robert Atkinson Eskrigge and Eliza Robson, a Quaker. Edith was born in 1872 at Liscard Vale, Wallasey, Cheshire. She attended a Girls' school in Wallasey before transferring, in 1889, to a boarding school, Sonnenschein's Girls' School in Anerley, Surrey. During 1890-1892, Edith returned home to Wallasey. In 1893 Edith was teaching Callisthenics to a class of girls in Wallasey. A few years later, Edith was involved with the Settlement for Women Workers, also known as the Canning Town Settlement, which she left in May 1897. Edith was a member of the South Wales Suffrage Federation. In Jul 1913 Edith joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) pilgrimage, on the Watling Street route from Carlisle to London. Between Aug 1914 and Mar 1920, Edith was involved with the Liverpool War Pensions Committee and the Soldier and Sailor's Families Association. Edith was chief officer of the latter and it was here that she worked with Eleanor Rathbone. Whilst in Liverpool, Edith was also involved in establishing a school for children who were invalids. This became a charity, Invalid Children's Aid, later known as the Child Welfare Association. Her interest in the welfare of children continued with her active role in the Child Adoption Society. Also post-war, Edith served as honorary secretary of the Liverpool branch of the Women's Citizens Association. Edith was a keen cyclist and an outdoors enthusiast. She travelled in Europe, America and Egypt. She died in 1948.

Emily Faithfull (1835-1895) was the youngest child of Reverend Ferdinand Faithfull, rector of Headley in Surrey, and his wife, Elizabeth Mary, on 27 May 1835. She was educated both at home in Headley, Surrey and at a boarding school in Kensington, from the age of 13 before being presented at court in 1857, aged 21. She was a member of the Langham Place Group. Emily had a keen interest in women's employment that later led her to write and give lectures on the subject. In 1859 she was a co-founder of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, together with Jessie Boucherett, Barbara Bodichon and Bessie Rayner Parkes. Emily also served as secretary to the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science's Committee in Nov 1859. Bessie Rayner Parkes was also a member of this committee and it was she who introduced Emily to the printing press. Emily founded her own printing house, The Victoria Press, in Mar 1860. It was a printing office for women typesetters, housed in Great Coram Street, later in Farringdon Street and then Praed Street, London. Emily being appointed Printer and Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty in 1862 acknowledged its success. From 1863 to 1880 she published and edited the Victoria Magazine that became a voice for those championing women's employment. In 1864, due to her close friendship with his wife, Helen Jane, she was involved in the public scandal of the divorce case of Admiral (Sir) Henry Codrington that affected her public reputation. Emily became one of the first women to join the Women's Trade Union League, founded in 1875 by Emma Paterson. She also served as Treasurer to a girls' club in Lamb's Conduit Street in Bloomsbury and on moving to Manchester, ran the local branch of the Colonial Emigration Society. In 1872 Emily made her first visit to the United States where her talks were well received, she re-visited in 1882 and 1883-4 and produced a book entitled Three Visits to America (Edinburgh, 1884) which compared the movements for women's work in England and America. She also published two novels. In 1874 Emily was involved in establishing the Women's Printing Society and a few years later, in founding 1877, the 'West London Express', which unfortunately only lasted eighteen months. Emily was on also the staff of the 'London Pictorial'. Ownership of 'The Victoria Press' was transferred to the Queen Printing and Publishing Company in Apr 1881. In the same year Emily helped found the International Musical, Dramatic and Literary Association, which was concerned with securing better protection through copyright. Emily was fortunate to receive £100 from the royal bounty in 1886 and from 1889 received an annual civil-list pension of £50. After suffering for many years with asthma and bronchitis, Emily died 31 May 1895 in Manchester aged sixty.

Elsa Fraenkel (1892-1975) was a sculptor and artist who became friends with Sylvia Pankhurst during the post-war period. They met for the first time in 1950 Fraenkel herself became interested in Ethiopia, the country with which Pankhurst was involved at the time. By 1950 the former was helping to organise cultural events featuring the African nation in London and contributed some of her own work to the celebration that was held in London when the Princess Tsahay Hospital was dedicated. Before Sylvia Pankhurst went to live in Ethiopia in 1956, she left her paintings and sketches with Mrs Elsa Fraenkel, herself a sculptor. When Pankhurst had moved to Ethiopia, Fraenkel contacted her with the aim of creating an exhibition of her work during her time with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Pankhurst was unable to help her having left behind much of the work she had created at the turn of the century, but was able to give her information on the time and send her photographs of a WSPU fete in the Princes Skating Rink. The eventual exhibition of work which was eventually arranged by Fraenkel and Lady Winstedt took place at the French Institute on 5 Dec 1959, sponsored by the Suffragette Fellowship, the Women's Freedom league and the Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society. Fraenkel also wrote an (undated) article on 'Sylvia Pankhurst : student days' which was based on notes supplied by Sylvia. After Pankhurst's death in 1960, Elsa offered a portrait of her to the National Portrait Gallery.

Elsie Fyffe (fl 1940) was a housewife during the Second World War. Just after the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1939, the British economy was placed on a siege footing. This meant that all resources from metal to foodstuffs became scarcer and stocks had to be preserved. In 1940 Lord Woolton was appointed Minister of Food, becoming responsible for operating the rationing system, and a parallel public relations campaign to encourage housewives to make the best of what was available. Food Ministry advertisements were regularly placed in newspapers offering advice on conserving the limited amounts and variety of fare available as well as conserving fuel. Propaganda campaigns revolved around making citizens feel that they were contributing to the war effort by following this guidance. It was in this context that Mrs Elsie Fyffe was informed by the Sunday Pictorial newspaper that she was one of the winners of their award for the twenty best housewives in Britain. For this, she was awarded a diploma signed by Lord Woolton and interviewed by the periodical.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), the daughter of Newson Garrett and Louise Dunnell, was born in Whitechapel, London in 1836, one of twelve children. From 1851 to 1853 she was educated in Blackheath but while visiting Northumberland in 1854, Elizabeth met Emily Davies who would remain a friend and supporter for the rest of her life. Five years later Garrett met Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to qualify as a doctor, influencing the former to enter the field of medicine. Attempts to enter several medical schools failed; instead Garrett became a nurse at Middlesex Hospital though her efforts to attend lectures for the male doctors failed. However, it came to light that the Society of Apothecaries did not specify that females were banned from taking their examinations and in 1865 Garrett sat and passed their examination before establishing a medical practice in London. That same year, she joined Emily Davies, Dorothea Beale and Francis Mary Buss to form the Kensington Society and in 1866 signed their petition for women's enfranchisement. In 1866 Garrett created a women's dispensary and four years later was appointed visiting physician to the East London Hospital where she met James Anderson, the man who was to become her husband in Feb 1871. Though she later graduated from the University of Paris, the British Medical Register refused to recognise her MD degree.

Over the next few years she became the first woman elected to serve on a school board in England, the mother of three children, opened the women-run New Hospital for Women in London with Elizabeth Blackwell and helped Sophia Jex-Blake to establish the London Medical School for Women to which Garrett Anderson was elected Dean of the London School of in 1884. Though she was never on the executives of any of the major suffrage societies, she did chair meetings and was a member first of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and then later of the London Society for Women's Suffrage. On her retirement she moved to Aldeburgh, Suffolk, and became mayor herself, following her husband's death, in 1908. Subsequently, she returned to suffrage politics, but left the National Union of Suffrage Societies, which her sister Millicent Fawcett dominated, and became active in the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) until 1911 when she objected to their arson campaign. Garrett Anderson and Skelton had one son, Alan Garrett Anderson (1877-1952), and two daughters, Margaret, who died of meningitis in 1875, and Louisa Garrett Anderson (1873-1943). Alan followed his father to become a public servant and shipowner, whilst Louisa went on to become a distinguished doctor herself and active suffragette. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson died on 17 Dec 1917.

Edith How Martyn (1875-1954) was born in London in 1875, sister of Florence Earengey. She attended the North London Collegiate School and then University College, Aberystwyth where she took the associateship in Physics and Mathematics. She married Herbet Martyn in 1899, completing her BSc the following year. From youth, she had radical political opinions and was a member of the Independent Labour Party before becoming an early member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1905. The following year she was appointed joint secretary of the WSPU with Charlotte Despard and it was in Oct 1906 that she was arrested in the lobby of the House of Commons and given a two-month sentence. However, the future direction of the WSPU under the Pankhursts was a matter of some concern to her as it was to other members at this time and in 1907 she left the group along with Charlotte Despard to form the Women's Freedom League (WFL). This abandoned the violent tactics of the older group in favour of non-violent illegal acts to convey their message. She was honorary secretary of the new group from 1907 to 1911, when she became head of the Political and Militant section. However, she resigned in Apr 1912, disappointed with the WFL's progress after the defeat of the Conciliation Bill. How-Martyn's next political act was to stand as an independent candidate in Hendon in the 1918 general election, an attempt she was not successful in. How Martyn held public office for the first time In 1919, when she became a member of the Middlesex County Council, a post she held until 1922. From now on, her interests would be mainly directed to the issue of birth control. She met the American family planning leader Margaret Sanger in 1915 and had been impressed by her ideas, subsequently organising the 1927 World Population Conference in Geneva with the New Yorker and becoming honorary director of the Birth Control International Information Centre in London in 1930. Between Nov 1934 and Mar 1935 the Englishwoman would travel through India campaigning for birth control, then went with Sanger on her trip to Asia the following year. How-Martyn returned the sub-continent several times in the following years to continue the work started there at this point. However, her past campaigning for women's suffrage was not forgotten: in 1926 she also established the Suffragette Fellowship that would begin the process of documenting the movement. She would continue this work in the following decades through a local branch in Australia which she established after she moved there at the outbreak of the Second World. Due to ill health, she remained in that country until she died in 1954.

Elsie Edith Bowerman (1889-1973) was born in Tunbridge Wells on 18 Dec 1889. She was the daughter of William Bowerman and his wife Edith Martha Barber. Her father died soon afterwards and her mother subsequently remarried a Mr Chibnall. Bowerman was sent to be educated at Wycombe Abbey Church of England girls' boarding school in Buckinghamshire and left there in 1907 for a period in Paris before going to Cambridge a year later to read Mediaeval and Modern Languages at Girton College. It was during her time there that she followed her mother into the women's suffrage movement. Both were active members of the militant Women's Social and Political Union. Bowerman passed her Tripos in 1911 and the following year, on 10 Apr 1912, she and her mother took a trip to the United States on the Titanic. Both survived and continued with their journey to British Columbia, the Klondyke and Alaska. In Jul 1916 Bowerman was invited by a colleague from the suffrage movement to go to Serbia as a driver for a Scottish women's hospital unit serving Serbian and Russian armies in Rumania. In Nov 1916 her unit set up a hospital near the Danube before having to swiftly dismantle it as the allies were swept into a retreat to the Russian frontier. She was in St Petersburg in Mar 1917 where she recorded the events she witnessed in the midst of the Russian Revolution. She returned to England in 1917 and immediately undertook speaking tours for the Scottish Women's Hospitals, raising awareness of their work and collecting funds. At the same time she worked for Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst during their campaign for 'industrial peace' in support of the war effort. In 1924 or 1925 she went on to set up the Women's Guild of Empire with Flora Drummond, with the continued aim of promoting co-operation between employers and workers and attacking communism. However, her principal interest was now the law, in which she gained an MA. She was admitted to the Bar in the early twenties and practised until 1938 on the South Eastern Circuit. As the Second World War approached, Bowerman gave up her legal practice to join the Women's Voluntary Services and worked with its founder Lady Reading for 2 years. After a short period at the Ministry of Information she began work with the Overseas Services of the BBC, remaining there for over 3 years. In 1947 she returned to the United States to help set up the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Bowerman suffered a stroke in 1972 and died at home on 18 Oct 1973, aged 83.

Elizabeth Gundrey (fl 1959-1975) was a journalist and author of 'Jobs for Mothers'. Prior to this Elizabeth wrote articles on the employment of middle class wives and on widowhood. She also wrote a paper for the National Economic Development Committee on recruitment and training of married women in the retail trade.

See the biography for Rathbone; Eleanor Florence (1872-1946); social reformer

Eleanor Florence Rathbone (1872-1946) was born in 1872, the daughter of the Liberal MP for Liverpool William S Rathbone and his second wife Emily Lyle. The young woman was educated first at Kensington High School, London and then Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, she returned to Liverpool as a worker for the local Central Relief Centre where she was able to examine social and industrial conditions in the area. This ultimately resulted in the publication of a report on the results of a special inquiry into the conditions of labour at the Liverpool Docks in 1903. When women became eligible to stand for election she became the first woman to be elected to Liverpool City Council and represented the Granby Ward as an independent councillor from 1909-1934. During that time she wrote an number of articles and papers on social questions including 'How The Casual Labourer Lives; A Report of The Liverpool Joint Research Committee on the Domestic Condition and Expenditure of Families of Certain Liverpool Labourers' (1909). She also published 'Women's Need of the Vote; a Practical Illustration' in 1911 and a series of articles for 'Common Cause' including 'The Problem of Women's Wages' (1911) and 'Widows under the Poor Law (1913) which argued for state funded pensions for widows. As these showed, her work on social issues was constantly bound up with the question of women's social and political status. In 1898 she had become the secretary of the Liverpool Society for Women's Suffrage and later chair of the West Lancashire, West Cheshire and North West Wales Federation. Additionally, she became a member of the executive committee of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies from 1900. However, in 1913, the NUWSS launched the Election Fighting Fund policy, which promised support to any party officially supporting suffrage in an election where the candidate was challenging an anti-suffrage Liberal, the effect was to effectively support the Labour Party. Rathbone was opposed to this measure and resigned from the executive committee in 1914. However, she did support the war work done by the group between 1914 and 1918, taking over the Liverpool branch of the Soldiers and Sailors Family Association, acting as an administrative arm of the War Office and dealing with the payment of separation allowances to wives. Influenced by this, she helped form the Family Endowment Committee in 1918, which campaigned for women to be paid an allowance to alleviate their economic dependence on husbands. When the NUWSS broadened its aims after the grant of the vote to women over thirty and changed its name to the National Union of Societies of Equal Citizenship, Rathbone was elected the new organisation's first president (1919-1929). However, at this time there was no consensus within the movement regarding the appropriate response to new 'protective' legislation, which limited only women's working hours with the aim of 'protecting' them against industrial exploitation. An ideological split occurred at this time between those in NUSEC who, on the one hand, supported Rathbone and ideas such as an 'Endowment of Motherhood' which was intended to give women their financial independence and those, on the other, who adopted a more strictly equalist position. A number of members broke away to form equalist organisations such as the Open Door Council and the Six Point Group. However, Rathbone remained at the head of NUSEC and her views, outlined in works such as 'Utopia Calling: A Plea for Family Allowances' (1920) and shown in her work for the Children's Minimum (later Nutrition) Council, would go on to have an impact on the eventual form of the welfare state set up after the Second World War. In 1922 she stood for election as an independent candidate for East Toxteth division Liverpool but was defeated. Instead it was as an independent candidate for the Combined English Universities' seat that Rathbone was finally elected to parliament in 1929, a post she held until her death in 1946. In the House of Commons, she remained active in working for equal treatment for women in public and private life. She strongly opposed changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act that appeared to disadvantage women as well as campaigning against the Nationality of Married Women Act. Additionally, she was almost alone in the Commons in that decade in denouncing the potential danger from Germany and the Nazi Party after 1933. Rathbone was also deeply involved in the campaign for Indian women's suffrage throughout her parliamentary career; this included an interest in their legal and social status, their education and especially efforts to make illegal the practice of child marriage. Rathbone obtained an MA and LLD (Doctor of Laws) at Liverpool as well as an Honorary MA at Durham and an Honorary DCL (Doctor of Civil Law) at Oxford, she was also a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Rathbone remained an MP until her sudden death on 2 Jan 1946.