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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Edith Maud Hull (1880-1947) (née Henderson) was an author who wrote using the pseudonym EM Hull. She was also known as Edith Maud Winstanley. She was born in London to James Henderson, a Liverpool shipowner, and Katie Thorne, of New Brunswick, Canada. In her youth she travelled in Algeria, which may have provided the inspiration for her later novels. She married Percy Winstanley Hull (b 1869), a gentleman pig farmer of Derbyshire, in the early 1900s. They lived at The Knowle, the Hull family estate in Hazelwood, Derbyshire, and had one daughter, Cecil Winstanley Hull. EM Hull began to write romantic fiction during the First World War while her husband was serving in the military. Her first and most famous novel, The Sheik (1919), was a bestseller, and was made into a phenomenally successful film starring Rudolph Valentino. It was considered exotic and shocking at the time, contributing to the fashion for the 'desert romance' genre of fiction and turning EM Hull into a bestselling novelist. She went on to write seven more books, including Sons of the Sheik (1925), which was also made into a film with Valentino. EM Hull died at home in Hazelwood, Derbyshire on 14 Feb 1947.
Emily Wilding Davison was born in Blackheath in 1872. She attended Kensington High School and then Holloway College. However, two years into her course her father died and she was forced to leave to become a governess. She was subsequently able to pay for a course a St Hugh's College at Oxford. She sat her final examinations in 1893 when she took a first-class degree. She was subsequently employed by the Church of England School for Girls in Edgbaston from 1895-6 before moving to Seabury School in West Worthing. She then move again to Berkshire where she again became a governess until 1906, the year in which she joined the Women's Social and Political Union.
She was employed by the Women's Social and Political Union as chief steward at the Hyde Park procession in June 1908 and was one of the nine arrested in March 1909 when a deputation marching from the Caxton Hall to the Houses of Parliament was prevented from seeing the Prime Minister. She was arrested a second time in July when after interrupting a meeting in Limehouse addressed by David Lloyd George. This time the sentence was doubled to two months and Davison went on hunger strike. She was released after five days, beginning the long series of arrests, imprisonments and releases after force-feeding that would make up much of the rest of her life. In September she was arrested with Dora Marsden for throwing balls labelled 'bomb' through the window of a meeting in Manchester, received a two month sentence and was released after two and a half days having gone on hunger strike. Unable to find work, she became a paid organiser of the WSPU from April 1910. She managed to enter and hide in the House of Commons three times between 1910 and 1911, and was the first to embark on a campaign of setting fire to pillar-boxes. During her imprisonment in Holloway in 1912, she threw herself over landing railings on two separate occasions, incurring injuries which would continue to afflict her. On the 4th June 1913, she tried to seize the bridle of Anmer, the King's horse running at the Derby. She received head injuries and never recovered consciousness, dying on the 8th June. Her funeral was preceded by a large funeral cortege that became one of the iconic events of the campaign for Women's Suffrage. The service took place at St George's Church, then the coffin was taken by train to the family grave in Morpeth in Northumberland. After her death, she became an almost mythic figure in popular culture and her memory was perpetuated both within the movement and beyond.
Florence C Stevens (c.1890-), her sister Eleanor Stevens, and her friend Rose Barry were supporters of the women's suffrage movement. Florence played in the Drum and Fife Band of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which was formed in 1909, during the summer of which it regularly marched round Holloway Prison to play inspiring music, and also played for special suffrage events and activities. Patricia Woodlock was a member of the WSPU in Liverpool and was repeatedly imprisoned for her suffrage activities. Her release from Holloway Prison after serving three months in Jun 1909 was celebrated by the WSPU by a breakfast in London and receptions in Manchester and Liverpool.
Sylvia Haymon (1917-1995) was born Sylvia Rosen in Norwich on 17 Oct 1917, the daughter of a Jewish master tailor. She was educated at the London School of Economics but did not complete the course, instead marrying Mark Haymon in 1933. During the Second World War she worked in the United States, where she was employed by a New York toyshop as a buyer. She returned with the first of her two daughters to Britain in 1947 where she became a broadcaster, working with Woman's Hour in the early 1950s. She also became a freelance writer for The Lady, The Times and Punch until the late 1960s, writing articles on subjects including the militant suffrage movement at the start of the century. It was at the end of this decade that she began writing children's books, Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1969, and King Monmouth the following year. Subsequently she began to publish crime novels under the name of S T Haymon, the first being Death and The Pregnant Virgin in 1980, followed by Ritual Murde' in 1982, for which she won the Silver Dagger Award. She published seven of these in all, in addition to two volumes of autobiography: Opposite the Cross Keys (1988) and The Quivering Tree (1990). She died, three years after her husband, in Oct 1995.
Hilda M L Squire, born in 1898, was the daughter of J Edward Squire (1855-1917) a wealthy doctor involved in public health and hygiene. Her aunt was Rose Elizabeth Squire (1861-1938) who had a distinguished career as a Factory Inspector at the Home Office. Their grandfather was William Squire (1825-1899) physician to Lord Cardigan. Hilda studied history and biology in 1915 at one of the Oxbridge colleges and in 1917 was educated at Francis Holland Church of England School, where she was Head of her school year. During 1918-1919 Hilda worked as a VAD, after which she studied for the examinations of the National Health Society. She was awarded diplomas in hygiene, physiology, child welfare and tuberculosis. Furthermore, she qualified under the Sanitary Inspectors Examination Board in 1920. Her career in health visiting started with her working at the Royal College of Saint Katherine in Poplar. She worked here for two years as an Infant Health Visitor. In 1926 Hilda was awarded a certificate in Social Science and Administration from the London School of Economics. She also gained a certificate from the Institute of Hospital Almoners. Following on from this, Hilda spent ten years working at Brompton Hospital, during the 1920-1930s, as a hospital almoner. At the same time, she was also a Tuberculosis Visitor and Secretary to the Tuberculosis Committee of the Chelsea Tuberculosis Dispensary. During [1949-1951] Hilda worked at the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases as Lady Almoner. Whilst here she specialised in neurological illnesses, such as epilepsy. Hilda was involved with various organisations during her busy career. These included the National Association for Mental Health (1943-1953), the British Council for Rehabilitation (1947-1951), the National Association for the Paralysed (1950-1961 also a founder member), the British Epilepsy Association (1950-1951 also a founder member), the British Rheumatic Association (1953), the British Council for the Welfare of Spastics (1955) and the Queen Elizabeth Foundation for the Disabled from 1966. As a representative of the Institute of Almoners, Hilda served on the councils of the Chalfour Epileptic Colony (1948-1957), the Courtauld-Sargent concert club (1932-1936) and the Mobile Physiotherapy Service Association Limited (1956-1958). She died in 1991.
Rose Squire (1861-1938) was born in London, the daughter of William Squire, a surgeon, and his wife Martha Wilkinson. After being educated at home, she trained in 1893 as a lecturer in health and hygiene. She was the first woman to sit for the sanitary inspector's certificate, in 1894, and worked as a sanitary inspector of laundries and workshops. In 1895 she became a lady inspector of factories, working throughout the country. In 1903 she was appointed senior lady inspector, from 1908-1912 she was based in Manchester, returning to London in 1912. From 1906-1907 Squire was a special investigator to the royal commission on the poor laws. During the First World War she worked with the Ministry of Munitions, where she was involved in the promotion of good factory working conditions, and in 1918 was appointed director of their women's welfare department. She received an OBE in 1918. In 1920 she became the first woman to hold an administrative post in the Home Office. She retired in 1926 and died in 1938.
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was born in 1802, the daughter of Thomas Martineau, a textile manufacturer from Norwich and his wife Elizabeth Martineau. Both were Unitarians and were in favour of education for girls. Consequently, Harriet and her two sisters were taught in a similar way to their three brothers until the latter left for university. Harriet became deaf at an early age. She began writing while in her period of 'mourning' when her brother James, to whom she was closest, left for university. Her first article, 'Female Writers On Practical Divinity', was published anonymously in The Monthly Repository in 1821. Whilst in 1823 the Unitarian journal, The Monthly Repository, published her anonymous article, 'On Female Education', which described the differences between the sexes as being caused by differing methods of training. Martineau was engaged to John Hugh Worthington but he died of 'brain fever' before the marriage took place. This, combined with the financial difficulties (resulting from the economic crash of 1826) and death of her father, necessitated her earning her own living and freed her to pursue a writing career. she continued to work for the 'Monthly Repository' to support herself. Additionally, she began writing religious works such as Devotional Exercises for the Use of Young Persons and Addresses for the Use of Families, both published in 1826. Martineau worked as a seamstress, taking in sewing at home (as opposed to working in a 'sweat shop'), sewing during the day and writing at night until the 'Illustrations' was accepted for publication. Harriet's interest soon moved to politics and she created the series of stories entitled Illustrations of Political Economy, in order to popularise the utilitarian theories of Bentham and Priestly and the economic of Smith. When the series of 24 volumes was published in 1832-3, they became a huge success and were followed up by Poor Laws and Paupers illustrated (1834). The profits enabled her to set up home in London and undertake a two-year tour of the United States of America. She based two books on this experience: Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). Martineau remained ambivalent towards women's suffrage, arguing that until women had education, access to professions, and economic independence, their votes would be compromised by the men in their lives. She was, however, keen on the Garrisonian branch of the abolition movement, because it focused on emancipation and included women activists, as opposed to more politically-oriented groups as illustrated in one of her chapters entitled 'The Political Non-Existence of Women'.
In this period despite increasing illness, and in addition to her political and historical works, Martineau began writing different genres. Her only novel Deerbrook was published in 1839; followed by a historical biography The Hour and the Man in 1840; and a series of novelettes for children The Playfellow in 1841.
She moved to Ambleside in the Lake District in 1845. In 1847 Harriet went with friends on a tour of the Near East for eight months, returning with the manuscript of 'Eastern Life Present and Past', published in 1848. The proceeds from this work paid for her to build her own home in Ambleside. The work was well received but the religious views that it presented were treated with some hostility. During this period she also worked on The History of the Peace, which was published in 1849.
The publication of 'Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development' in 1851 was received with more hostility. In this work Martineau advocated agnosticism. The scandal with which it was received was due partly to her insistence that three of the world's primary religions - Judaism, Islam, and Christianity - grew out of the same geographical area and the same, or similar, theological systems, and were not necessarily incompatible. The scandal was also due to her challenge to the dating of human life and cultures, as presented in the scriptures. Martineau, as well as her historical and anthropological sources (Wilkinson, for example) predate the scientific revolution heralded by Darwinism, by nearly twelve years (1859). Martineau's views expressed in 'Letters on the Laws' also destroyed the relationship between her and several members of her family.
Harriet returned to journalism in 1852 as a member of staff at the Daily News where she wrote over 1600 articles during a 16-year period. Harriet also contributed articles for other publications, including pieces on the employment of women for the Edinburgh Review and on the state of girls' education for the Cornhill Magazine. Plagued by invalidism periodically throughout her life, ill health became a problem again in 1855 and she wrote an autobiography in that year in the belief that she was dying. However, she recovered and continued with her career in journalism for approximately another twenty years. Harriet was always interested in and vocal on women's employment, women's education and the legal position of married women. In 1866 she joined Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Emily Davies, Dorothea Beale and Francis Mary Buss in creating and presenting a petition asking Parliament to grant the vote to women. Harriet also campaigned for women's entry into the medical profession. From 1864, and again in 1869, Harriet was active in the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts in which she would later be joined by Josephine Butler. Eventually, ill health began to restrict her public activities during the 1870s, though she continued to write until her death. She died of bronchitis aged 74 in 1876.
Hilda Mary Seligman (fl. 1936-1947) founded the "Skippo" Fund, which supplied the first health vans to serve isolated villages in India and Pakistan. The Fund's 'Asoka-Akbar Mobile Health Vans' were given to the All India Women's Conference to administer. She was the author of three small books: When Peacocks Called (1940), Skippo of Nonesuch (1943), Asoka, Emperor of India (1947).
Judith Hubback was born in 1917, the daughter of Sir John Fisher-Williams. She graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1936 and married Eva Hubback's son the following year. After her marriage she taught until the first of her children was born but later returned to part-time coaching. In the late 1940s, Judith Hubback's mother in law, Eva Hubback, began a survey on housewives which was to have formed the basis for a chapter of a book on contemporary women. However, she died suddenly in 1949 before this could be completed. Judith Hubback took the information that the survey had revealed and analysed the data it contained, then wrote to the Manchester Guardian with the results. By 1950, she began work on expanding the survey and applied for funds from the government to conduct an inquiry into the part-time work available for married women but failed to gain the grant necessary. Instead, she reformulated her study to research the conditions and opinions of married female graduates and received a grant of 50 pounds from the Leche Foundation to carry it out. The survey was conducted from her home, sending out questionnaires to 1500 graduates, and had a 65% response rate. From the data which she received, she wrote the pamphlet 'Graduate Wives' in 1953 and the book Wives Who Went to College in 1957, both of which proved landmark works in the field. Hubback subsequently became involved in Jungian psychotherapy, training to be a psychotherapist at London University College and practising as a Jungian analyst from 1963 to date. She also published a series of articles in this field as well as books of poetry.
Mary Alexander Jackson (1905-1977) was born Mary Telford in Abergavenny in 1905. She studied French and History at Aberystwyth University, later going on to become a member of the British Federation of University Women and becoming involved in the movement to establish playgrounds for children in urban areas. In the 1920s she met John Jackson who, in 1928, went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to become a surveyor. She followed in 1929 in order to marry him. They had three children who moved around the island with them continually in the course of John Jackson's work. They remained there until the outbreak of the Second World War, then Mary Jackson and her children were evacuated to Natal in South Africa. The whole family returned to Cambridge in 1948. Mary Jackson became employed teaching French nearby in Cottenham Village School and took part in a large number of voluntary organisations such as the Children's Playground Association which she founded in 1949. She became particularly involved in the National Council of Women at both a local and a national level. She was the local chair for three years, and during the 1950s was one of the twelve representatives of the NCW on the government commission sent to West Germany to study women's voluntary work there. She also retained an interest in the welfare of African women in the United Kingdom and was active in trying to organise centres for their use. She died in 1997.
Mary Ann Rawle (1878-1964) was born in Lancashire in 1878 and from the age of ten worked in a cotton mill. In 1900 she married Francis Rawle, an iron turner, with whom she had two children. She became active in local industrial politics and was a member of her local branch of the Independent Labour Party at Ashton-Under-Lyne. Six years later she was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and was one of the group of 400 women textile workers who went as a deputation to the Prime Minister on 19 May 1906. During this event, she came into contact with Teresa Billington-Greig, Annie and Jessie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst, and accompanied the group who was allowed into the Foreign Office on that occasion. In the autumn of that same year, she assisted Hannah Mitchell when she was appointed a part-time organiser for the WSPU in Oldham. In Mar 1907 she attended the second Women's Parliament (dressed in shawl and clogs) and was arrested in London and sentenced to two weeks in Holloway Prison. In 1907, however, she left the WSPU for the Women's Freedom League and became the secretary of its Ashton-Under-Lyne branch. She moved to Grantham in 1910 and presided at a branch meeting of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies there in 1913. She would later stand as a Labour candidate in the Grantham municipal elections and was chair of her branch of the Women's Co-operative Guild for 17 years. In 1945 she was chair of the Grantham branch of the Old Age Pensions Association. She died in 1964.
Mary Beatrice Crowle (1874- fl 1930) was born in Brisbane in 1874, the daughter of Mr WE Finucane. In her lifetime she was a suffragist, voluntary worker, health practitioner, holder of public office and broadcaster. After her marriage to the naval officer Captain Crowle, she began a series of travels that would eventually end in her settling in England. Crowle was active in the suffrage movement in the pre-war period, becoming a member of the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association by 1913 and the honorary secretary of the Plymouth branch in the following year. During the first year of the First World War she worked with the Red Cross as a nurse and established a Ladies Rifle Club in the naval town. The following year, she was one of the first members of the local branch of the Women's Police Force and began lecturing on the role of her native Australia in the war. In the post-1918 period when women had been given a vote, she became a member of the committee of the Bath and District Women Citizens' Association and was elected to the Bath Union Board of Guardians. During the 1920s she became involved with broadcasting and became a Selborne Society Lecturer, following this activity in the 1930s by joining the League of Nations Union. Towards the end of her life, she became concerned with issues of vivisection and homeopathic medicine.
Mary Stocks (1891-1975) was the daughter of Roland Danvers, a General Practitioner, and Helen Constance Rendel. She was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School, London and at the London School of Economics (LSE) where she studied economics, graduating in 1913. In 1913 she married John Leofric Stocks. Mary went on to have an academic career at the University of Oxford, LSE, King's College of Household and Social Science, Manchester University and Westfield College London, of which she was Principal from 1939-1951. Whilst still at school, Mary had become a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). She carried a banner in the 1907 'Mud March' and stewarded at meetings, distributed literature, attended conferences and addressed street corner meetings. In 1914 she became a member of the Executive Committee of the NUWSS and in 1928 remained involved in the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. In addition she was active in the birth control movement and was a member of various royal commissions and statutory committees, including the Unemployment Statutory Committee. Mary Stocks also wrote and broadcast widely. Her publications include 'The Industrial State: A Social and Economic History of England' (1921), 'The Case for Family Endowment' (1927), a biography of Eleanor Rathbone and histories of district nursing, the Manchester University Settlement and the Workers Educational Association. In addition, she published two autobiographical volumes, 'My Commonplace Book' (1970), which contains an account of her suffrage activities, and 'Still more commonplace' (1973). She was created a life peer in 1966. She died in 1975.
Frances May Greenup (1902-1998) was born in 1902, the daughter of George Tuckwell, a police constable. At the age of fourteen she began her training as a pupil teacher in Coleshill, Warwickshire. In 1922 she went on to study at St. Gabriel's College, Camberwell, London. Once qualified she took up a teaching post in Tottenham. Two years later, in 1926, she married the artist Joseph Greenup (1891-1946). He had been educated at the Birmingham School of Art, South Kensington College of Art and at the Royal Academy School and he worked as an illustrator for newspapers, books and periodicals and as a portrait painter. In the 1930s May also took up painting and was elected to the Royal Institute of Water Colourists. In 1940 she joined the Auxiliary Ambulance Service as a driver and was promoted to Station Officer at 39 Weymouth Mews, London. Joseph died in 1946 and after his death May left London to live in the Cotswolds and then in Cardiganshire with her friend Elizabeth Bridge (1912-1996), also an artist, and continued to teach and to paint. She died in 1998.
Margaret Judith Smieton (fl 1919-1925) decided to study for the newly instituted BSc in Horticulture in 1919. However, admission to the course was complicated by the need to obtain other qualifications and apply for grants to take up places on these courses. Her mother undertook an extensive correspondence with the University of London between 1919-1922 to ascertain available types and scope of horticultural degree courses, qualifications for grants, terms of admission etc. Consequently, in 1923, Smieton obtained a Diploma from the Horticultural College in Swanley, and went on to take Parts 1 and 2 of the Final Degree course for the BSc in 1924-1925.
May Morris (1862-1938) was born on the 25 Mar 1862, christened 'Mary', and was the younger of William and Jane Morris's two daughters. Both she and her sister Jenny were accomplished embroiderers - taught by their mother and by their aunt, Bessie Burden - and in 1885 May took over the direction of Morris and Co.'s embroidery department. She also actively assisted her father in promoting the cause of Socialism in the 1880s and 90s. At the turn of the century she taught embroidery at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and at Birmingham's Municipal School of Art, becoming a leading figure in the (mainly male-dominated) Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris was an accomplished Embroiderer, jeweller, and fabric designer; she was also the first President of Women's Guild of Art (founded 1907). Her Introductions to The Collected Works of William Morris, 24 volumes edited by her and published between 1910 and 1915, contain many illuminating details of Morris's career and his family life.
Mollie Prendergast (1907-fl 1977) was born in 1907, in Hallthwaites, Cumberland, the daughter of George Shaw, a farm labourer and Mary Shuttleworth. She grew up near Boughton in Furness, Lancashire. Mollie left school in 1920 and went into service in Ambleside and later at Malton in Yorkshire. She then moved to London and held several positions there. In 1928 she married Wesley Packham, a chauffeur and subsequently gave up work. During the Second World War she joined the ARP and trained with the St. John's Ambulance Brigade. In 1942 she joined the Communist Party. During the War she also took evening classes and went to work as a clerk in the insurance conglomeration Amalgamated Approved Societies that became part of the Ministry of National Insurance after the War. She was amongst the first tourists to visit East Germany after the War and she also travelled to Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France, Australia, Czechoslovakia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Her husband died in 1951. After this Mollie Prendergast became involved in political action in health and housing, especially locally in Marylebone and St. John's Wood, and went on political marches and demonstrations, including with CND. In 1958 she married for a second time, to Jim Prendergast, a railway guard at Marylebone Station. He died in 1974. Mollie then became secretary to Joan Maynard MP, a position from which she retired in 1977.
Pat Caplan (fl 1970-) studied Swahili and anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She became an ethnographic expert on Mafia, an island off the coast of Tanzania, and also worked in Nepal, Madras and Britain. Pat Caplan was one of the founding members of the Anthropology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, which she joined as a lecturer in 1977. She became Professor of Anthropology in 1989 and continued to teach until 2003. She is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology. She was also Director of the University of London Institute of Commonwealth Studies 1998-2000 and Chair of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the Commonwealth 1997-2001. Her interests have included gender and social inequality; sexuality; kinship; food, health and risk; reflexivity and anthropological ethics; social justice and human rights. She has carried out fieldwork on Mafia Island, Tanzania since 1965, Chennai (Madras) since 1974, and West Wales since 1992. She has authored five books and edited or co-edited six others, as well as writing numerous articles, both academic and non-academic; she has also produced a video and website (both about Mafia Island), a digital data archive about food and health, and an archive on her Nepal research. Caplan became involved in the Women's Liberation Movement in the early 1970s, being a member of several local reading and consciousness-raising groups in north London. She also worked as a volunteer for two days a week at the Women's Research and Resources Centre (WRRC) in the mid 1970s, when it was still located in its first home at the Richardson Institute in Gower Street. Pat was a member of the (General) Collective and of the Publications Collective. Like many women academics at the time, Pat initially found it difficult to obtain a full-time university job. Many female academics held only part-time or temporary posts and this was often the experience of members of the WRRC. Pat attended the National Women's conferences held throughout the 1970s, and also conferences in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s concerning the teaching of women's studies (mainly in universities). As an academic she has remained active in feminism, and has taught a number of courses on women and gender as well as carrying out research in this area. She is currently a Trustee of the development charity Action Aid, and has responsibility on the Board for women's rights.
Sarah Madeleine Martineau (1872-1972) was a successful Arts and Crafts jeweller. She was born in Clapham, London on 2 May 1872, to Utilitarians David and Sarah Martineau. Sarah, known as Lena, and her two unmarried sisters probably remained together in the family home until the 1940s, living near or with each other in South London until their deaths. Lena began her education boarding at Roedean School in Sussex. She initially attended Clapham Art School, and subsequently attended Westminster School of Art with her sister Lucy and Sophie Pemberton, a Canadian artist. By autumn 1897 Lena and Lucy had found a studio to rent and in 1899 and 1900 Lena concentrated on submitting pictures to the Royal Academy, all of which were rejected. Later that year she sat a modelling design exam, passing first class, and a life exam which was awarded a book prize in the National Competition run by the Science and Art Department of the Committee of the Council on Education and entered by thousands of art students. In 1902 she decided to commit to metal work, buying a muffle furnace and a year later studying metal work at Sir John Cass Technical Institute in Whitechapel. She was also a member of the Sir John Cass Arts and Crafts Society. By 1904 she was an established jewellery maker, and in 1906 she had had two pendants accepted for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the Granfton Galleries. By 1909 she was showing her jewellery at various galleries and exhibitions, including the Society of Women Artists and was featured in 'Studio' magazine for various achievements. By the 1916 Arts and Crafts Exhibition her work was not exhibited suggesting she no longer actively participated in the arts and crafts scene. She died in 1972.
Lady Stella Reading (1894-1971) was born Stella Charnaud in 1894 in Constantinople where her father worked for the British Foreign Service. She was educated in Europe before becoming a secretary. She was posted to India as the secretary of the new Viceroy's wife before becoming part of the Viceroy's secretariat in Delhi. There, she met John Isaacs, the Marquis of Reading whom she would marry after the death of his wife in 1931. He died in 1935, soon after their return to England. Lady Reading became increasingly involved in social work such as the Personal Service League (PSL) and was elected to a number of committees as well as becoming a magistrate. Her work with the PSL meant that it was her that the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, approached to set up the Women's Voluntary Service for Air Raid Precautions in 1938. The organisation, which soon became known as the simply the Women's Voluntary Service or WRS, recruited and organised female volunteers before and during the war. After 1945, Lady Reading and the organisation continued their work and it was for this that she was created a Life Peer in Jul 1958, becoming the first woman to take her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Swanborough. She died on 21 May 1971.
Una M Heler (fl 1977-1981) worked in the advertising industry for most of her life. She appears to have been a member of staff at the Rumble, Crowther and Nicholas Ltd advertising company working on a drink survey carried out between May and Jun 1949 and she was still working for Impact Stationers Ltd into the 1980s. In this capacity, she became a member of the Women's Advertising Club of London and sat on its Executive Committee at the end of the 1970s. In 1977 she took over the position of representative of the Advertising Club on the Standing Committee of the Advisory Council to the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, a position which she held until at least 1981.
Vida Goldstein (1869-1948) was born in Australia in 1869 and educated at the Ladies' Presbyterian College in Melbourne. With her mother and siblings, she campaigned against slum poverty and sweated labour with the Presbyterian minister Dr Charles Strong and began to study sociology and economics to underpin her ideas on the causes of poverty. However, after her family found itself in financial difficulties in 1893, she and her sisters opened a mixed-gender preparatory school and became active in social welfare work. It was in the late 1880s that female enfranchisement became an issue in Australia. The Australian Women's Suffrage Society was formed in 1889 to obtain rights for women, building on the foundations of the Women's Christian Temperance Union's social reform and equal moral standards work since 1887. By the 1890s, Goldstein too had become concerned with the issue of women's suffrage. She helped her mother collect signatures for the Australian Woman Suffrage Petition at the start of the decade and by the end had become leader of the United Council for Women's Suffrage after the death of its founder Annette Bear-Crawford until the latter half of 1901. In 1894, South Australian Women were granted the right to vote followed by those Western Australia in 1899. However, her own territory of New South Wales did not grant this right until 1902 and Victoria waited until 1908. Goldstein therefore began 1900 by founding and editing the women's suffrage journal, 'Australian Women's Sphere', which was read worldwide since much suffrage work was done at the international level at the end of the century. Consequently, the Australian was invited to a suffrage conference in Washington in 1902 to which she was elected the first secretary of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance formed there and drafted its proposed constitution and declaration of principles. During this visit, she was requested to undertake research into solutions to child neglect by the Australian government and the Trades Hall to inquire into unionisation in the United States. There, she spoke to the two houses as well as the president. Furthermore, she was invited to speak before a hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives to support Carrie Chapman Catt's request for an investigative committee to into the practical results of women's enfranchisement. On her return, having resigned her role in the United Council, she began preparations for the first Federal election in 1903 where women were entitled to vote, founding the Women's Federal Political Association, which later became the Woman's Political Association. Goldstein, Mrs Nellie Martel, and Mrs Mary Ann Moore Bently stood for the upper house or senate, becoming the first women parliamentary candidates in the British Empire. Though unsuccessful, Goldstein ran three more times for the Senate, in 1903, 1910 and 1917 and for the lower House of Representatives in 1913, and again in 1914. She remained concerned with social issues during this time and her research on poor families was used in the Harvester Judgement of 1907, which set a basic wage for Australia. She also helped establish separate courts to try underage children. However, she did not leave the issue of women's suffrage behind, establishing the periodical the Woman Voter in 1908. Goldstein's first visit to Britain occurred in 1911 when she spoke on behalf of the Women's Social and Political Union, wrote a number of articles for Votes for Women and contributed several pieces for the book Woman Suffrage in Australia published by the Woman's Press. She was also present at the Women's Coronation pageant on the 17 Jun where she represented her country. It was while she was in the United Kingdom that she established the Australian and New Zealand Voters' Association. This was intended to help British citizens, resident in Australasia, to support the campaign for women's suffrage in their homeland. During this visit to Britain, she met Adela Pankhurst and it was Goldstein who helped Pankhurst to move to Australia and become the first organiser of the Woman's Political Association there in 1914. The support which she had in the country waned after the outbreak of the First World War after her pacifist position became clear. She became the Chair of the Peace Alliance and a number of original members left the Women's Political Alliance when it adopted a pacifist policy. In Jul 1915 she established the Women's Peace Army with Pankhurst and Cecelia Johns and began to campaign actively against conscription. At the same time, she organised the Women's Unemployment Bureau to find work for those in need as well as offering subsidised meals and offering help to dockers' families during a strike. In Jan 1919 Goldstein and Johns were asked to represent Australian women at the Women's Peace Conference in Geneva. After attending this, however, the former did not directly return home but spent three further years in the United Kingdom, allowing the Women's Political Association and the 'Woman Voter' to lapse. By the time of her return, she had become a Christian Scientist and she spent the rest of her life living with her sisters Elsie and Aileen, supporting the idea of planned families and social purity. She died in Aug 1949.
Vera Louise Holme (1881-1969) was born in Lancashire in 1881, the daughter of Richard Holme, a timber merchant, and his wife Mary Louisa Crowe. Holme was sent away from home as a young girl to be educated at a convent school in Belgium. As a young woman she was based in London, and began performing with touring acting companies, often as a male impersonator. She adopted a masculine style of dress, short hair and took on the nickname Jack or Jacko. She became a member of the D'Olyly Carte Opera company around 1906, performing in productions of Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy Opera House. By 1908 she was a member of the Actresses' Franchise League. She joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908 and was active in suffrage propaganda work such as greeting released prisoners from Holloway Prison in Mar 1909; working as a mounted marshal at a demonstration in Jun 1909 and acting the role of 'Hannah Snell' in Cicely Hamilton's 'Pageant of Great Women' in 1909. She was close to the centre of WSPU activity and social circles, staying with the Blathwayt family at Eagle's House in 1909, becoming the chauffeur for the Pankhursts and Pethick-Lawrences, and was a member of the 'Young Hot Bloods' group alongside Jessie Kenney and Elsie Howie. She was imprisoned in Holloway Prison in 1911 for stone-throwing. From 1914-1920 she was an acting member of the Pioneer Players. At the outbreak of the First World War, Holme joined the Women's Volunteer Reserve, and then enlisted in the transport unit of the Scottish Women's Hospital, based in Serbia and Russia, where she was responsible for horses and trucks. In Oct 1917 she delivered a report on the situation of the Serbian army on the Romanian Front to Lord Robert Cecil of the Foreign Office. She spent the remainder of the war giving lecture tours to publicise the work of the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit. In 1918 she became the administrator of the Haverfield Fund for Serbian Children - an orphanage set up by Evelina Haverfield, her companion from 1911 until her death in 1920. She continued to be involved in relief work for Serbia in various capacities throughout the 1920s -1930s, and remained interested in political issues in Yugoslavia throughout her life, returning to visit in 1934. She subsequently moved to Scotland where she lived with Margaret Greenless and Margaret Ker, friends from her suffrage days and also previously of the Scottish Women's Hospitals Unit. She became involved in the artistic scene centred around Kirkcudbright, led by Jessie M King. She was a lifelong friend of Edith Craig, participating in performances staged in the Barn Theatre, Kent. She was close to her brother Richard (known as Dick or Gordon) Holme throughout her life, and her niece and nephew were named Vera and Jack after her. She was also active in the Women's Rural Institute from the early 1920s until her death in Scotland in 1969.
See the biography for Lidiard; Victoria Simmonds (1889-1992); suffragette
Victoria Lidiard (1889-1992) was born Victoria Simmons in Bristol in Dec 1889, one of 12 siblings. She became a vegetarian at the age of ten, and remained interested in animal rights for all of her life. She left school when she was fourteen, later taking evening classes in shorthand and bookkeeping. She, her sisters and her mother became member of the Women's Social & Political Union in Bristol in 1907 and rapidly took part in militant activity such as disrupting political meetings and selling 'Votes for Women' in the streets. In Mar 1912, she took part in a window-smashing raid on Oxford Street and broke a window in the War Office. She was arrested, along with 200 other suffragettes, and sentenced to two months hard labour in Holloway Prison. During the First World War she ran a guesthouse in Kensington for professional women and worked at Battersea Power Station making anti-aircraft shells at weekends. In 1918 she married Major Alexander Lidiard MC of the First Manchester Rifles and a member of the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement. After the war the couple both trained as opticians and would work together as consultants at the London Refraction Hospital at Elephant and Castle where, in 1927, she became the first female refractionist. They subsequently took practices in Maidenhead and High Wycombe. She was a member of the National Council of Women for most of her working life and became involved with the Movement for the Ordination of Women during the last ten years of her life. She published a book, Christianity, Faith, Love and Healing at the age of 99 and canvassed MPs on improvement in the conditions in the transport of live animals. She died in Oct 1992, aged 102.
The Lincolnshire Women's Research Group (1985-1986) began as a Workers Educational Association class in 1985 in which women members were encouraged to examine their own experiences and those of their contemporaries in the county of Lincolnshire. The Group studied novels and short stories and then decided to interview local women with a view to the possibility of compiling a book about women's lives in Lincolnshire from the 1930s to the 1950s. After the course, the original class members continued with the project and produced an exhibition in the summer of 1986. Contributions were also made as a result of a Women's Institute essay competition on the subject of women's memories of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s in Lincolnshire. Material was gathered from these essays, interviews with local women, local newspapers and archives in the following areas: health and childcare; waged and war work; sex and superstition; food and drink; education; family life and childhood memories; fashion; and leisure and entertainment.
Between 1974-1981 Brian Harrison, then of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, undertook an oral history project financed by Social Science Research Council (he later extensively used these interviews in his book Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars Oxford University Press 1987). The original aim of the project was to provide material to supplement documentary sources on the Edwardian women's suffrage movement in Britain and to make these interviews available to scholars subsequently working in the field. Interviews were conducted with surviving Edwardian women's movement campaigners, their sons, daughters, relatives and employees. During the course of the project the chronological scope was widened to include those active in the women's movement after women's enfranchisement. Thematically the scope was also widened to encompass those who were active in various women's organisations, including international and religious organisations, and to cover themes including women's employment and birth control. 205 interviews with 183 individuals were completed.
The Hansard Society 'Women at the Top' Commission (1988-2000) was established in 1988 to investigate barriers to women entering senior positions. The Hansard Society itself was formed in 1944 to promote the ideals of parliamentary government in an era when it was felt to be threatened by the rise of fascist and communist dictatorships. As at 2008 the Hansard Society continued to act as an independent, non-partisan educational charity which existed to promote effective parliamentary democracy. Since the 1970s organised research projects on areas relating to its aims and published the findings. One mechanism for this was the establishment of independent Commissions of Enquiry chaired by eminent parliamentarians or academics. These included commissions on electoral reform, the representation of women and the reform of the legislative process. In 1988 it held a one-day seminar at Nuffield College, Oxford, to discuss the under-representation of women in Parliament and to consider the establishment of a Commission to investigate this issue. The Society subsequently set up a Commission, chaired by Lady Howe, which examined the barriers to the appointment of women to senior occupational positions, and to other positions of power and influence and made recommendations as to how these barriers might be overcome. Members included John Banham (CBI), Vernon Bogdanor (Brasenose College, Oxford), Alex Brett-Holt (First Division Association of Civil Servants), Jean Denton (Black Country Development Corporation), Alistair Graham (Industrial Society), Wilf Knowles (Equal Opportunities Commission), Anthony Lester QC, Joe Palmer (Legal and General Group Plc), Lisanne Radice (300 Group), Gillian Shephard MP, Katharine Whitehorn (The Observer), Robert Reid (British Rail), and Kenneth Stowe (Department of Health and Social Security). Susan McRae of The Policy Studies Institute was Research Officer and Rapporteur. The Commission examined certain key areas including women in parliament, public office, the civil service, judiciary, legal profession, management, higher education, the media and trade unions. Its methods included a review of published information about women in public life and employment; interviews with senior personnel in government, business, the civil service and the professions; interviews with experts in organisations committed to increasing equality of opportunity, including the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Women into Public Life Campaign and the 300 Group; contact with companies known for good practice in the employment of women, a survey of employers on their policies and practices towards the promotion of women to senior positions; a survey of companies on the composition of their main holding and subsidiary boards.
The Commission published its initial findings in 1990 in a publication entitled 'Women at the Top' by Elspeth Howe and Susan McRae.
This was followed by three further reports:
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Women at the Top: Progress after five years (1996) by Susan McRae
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'Women at the Top 2000: Cracking the public sector glass ceiling' by Karen Ross
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'Women at the top 2005 : changing numbers, changing politics?' by Sarah Childs, Joni Lovenduski and Rosie Campbell
The issue of women in the Church in Great Britain was one that had its origins in the Reformation. Convents were included in the abolition of the English monasteries and with their disappearance women lost the only ecclesiastical role open to them until the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century women in the Church of England began to campaign for women's work in the church to be acknowledged by allowing them to hold positions in its hierarchy.
Harriet McIlquham (1837-1910) was born in London in 1837. When young, she attended social and political lectures in Gloucestershire. By 1877, she had become a member of the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage as well as the Bristol and West of England Society for Women's Suffrage. In Feb 1881 she and Maria Colbey were the organisers of the Birmingham Grand Demonstration as well as being one of the speakers at the Bradford demonstration held in Nov 1881. That same year, she was elected as a Poor Law Guardian for Boddington in the Tewkesbury Union. An appeal was lodged to annul her election on the grounds that she was a married woman but it was found that she held her qualifying property independently of her husband and therefore remained in place. However, her attempt to be elected as a county councillor in 1889 failed. By 1889, Harriet McIlquham was a member of the Central National Society and a friend of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy. It was the latter who proposed her as president of the Women's Franchise League in Jul 1889, but two years later the pair transferred to the Women's Emancipation Union where Harriet McIlquham became a member of the council. In 1892 her first pamphlet 'The Enfranchisement of Women: An Ancient Right' was published and was widely read. Her writing continued in 1898 when the Westminster Review published a series of articles by her on Mary Astell, Lady Montague Wortley an eighteenth century journalist known as 'Sophia' and other enlightenment advocates of women's rights. Harriet McIlquham was also an active public speaker and in Feb 1893 gave a speech on women as poor law guardians; this was soon followed by an address to the Women's Emancipation Union conference held in Bedford the following year. Her audience and readers were drawn from across the spectrum of the suffrage movement. She was a member of the Cheltenham branch of the moderate National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies but also lobbied MPs in the House of Commons alongside members of the more militant Women's Social & Political Union (WSPU) in Feb 1905. Later, in 1908 and 1909 Harriet donated sums to both the WSPU and the Women's Freedom League respectively. Just before her own death, she helped organise a 'Grateful Fund' to which those who wished to show their appreciation of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's suffrage work could contribute. She died in 1910 after a short illness.
Alice von Cotta (1842-1931) was born in Freiburg, Saxony in 1842. Her father was Bernhard von Cotta, the geologist. In 1876 she started studying at Newnham College and was granted the Clothworker's scholarship for the year 1877-1878. During her final year, in 1878, Alice and her friend, Penelope Lawrence, spent their time together at Newnham. Penelope had been a childhood friend as their families already knew one another from a trip the Lawrence family had taken in Freiburg in 1864. In Jul 1878 Alice was appointed to the post of Mistress of Studies at Bedford College. She was paid a salary of £75.00. In Oct 1878, she also spent time at the North London Collegiate School. Her resignation to Bedford College was tendered in Jul 1880. From 1884-1912, Alice von Cotta was Principal of the Victoria-Lyceum in Berlin. This school had been established by crown princess Victoria, wife of Frederick I. Its aim was to provide a higher education for German women, principally teachers, before a university education was available to them. Alice von Cotta died in Hanover in 1931.
Heythrop was originally a religious foundation, set up in 1614 by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to train its own members. It was originally in Louvain but quickly moved to Liège where it remained until 1794 when the College moved to Stonyhurst, Lancashire. A new College was built near St Asaph, in North Wales in 1848. The Society of Jesus acquired Heythrop Hall, Oxfordshire, in 1923. Heythrop College was set up as a 'Collegium Maximum' - a Roman title indicating a college a little short of university status and issued degrees of the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome. It was opened to students, Aug 1926. In the 1960s a proposal was made for the College to become a 'Pontifical Athenaeum', an institution still rather less than a university, but a degree-granting body in its own right. For that purpose it needed to open its doors to students other than Jesuits, including lay people. This it did in 1965, with the approval of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales. Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, was installed as Chancellor of the new entity. Heythrop College became a constituent college of the University of London in October 1970 and moved to a new location in Cavendish Square. This allowed the College full integration within the British university system. With this move the College was self-governing and no longer a Jesuit institution. Nor was it any longer Roman Catholic. Nonetheless a large Jesuit presence remained, and the ethos continued to be Catholic. The College moved from Cavendish Square to Kensington Square in 1993 for financial reasons.
L[eonard] Bruce Archer (1922-2005) was an engineering designer and academic credited with helping to transform the process of design in the 1960s. As research fellow, and later professor of design research, at the Royal College of Art, Archer argued that design was not merely a craft-based skill but should be considered a knowledge-based discipline in its own right, with rigorous methodology and research principles incorporated into the design process. His initially controversial ideas would become pervasive and influential.
After early training at what is now City University, and a role as guest professor at Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm (1960-1), Archer went on to spend a majority of his career at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, until his retirement in 1988. From his initial appointment as research fellow within Misha Black's Industrial Design (Engineering) research unit, Archer ascended to head his own Department of Design Research (DDR) for 13 years (1971-84). Archer's innovative methods were first tested on a project in the 1960s to design improved equipment for the National Health Service. One strand of these studies, Kenneth Agnew's proposal for a hospital bed, culminated in the perfection of Agnew's design through a rigorous testing process and the inclusion of systems-level analysis and evidence-based design. The bed went on to become standard issue across the NHS. Archer's influence extended further through his series of articles in Design magazine in the 1960s, in which he advocated six basic stages of process: programming, data collection, analysis, synthesis, development and communication. In this, he anticipated and described concepts which would later be universally understood by designers in now-familiar terms such as 'quality assurance' or 'user-centred research'. Later successes included the DDR's influential study on the importance of design across the school curriculum (1976); from this the RCA established the Design Education Unit for teachers. The DDR itself was closed - peremptorily in Archer's view - by incoming Rector Jocelyn Stevens in 1984. Stevens instead hoped to give Archer College-wide responsibility for embedding research in all departments; to this end Archer was made Director of Research, a post he held until retirement in 1988. In retirement he remained active as president of the Design Research Society, and as a provider of short courses to various institutions, including a return to the RCA to deliver his Research Methods Course over several years.
Henry Wilson was born in Liverpool in 1864. He studied Art at Westminster School and the Royal College of Art and at various times he assisted John Oldrid Scott, John Belcher and John D Sedding, whom he succeeded in 1891. From 1895 on, he devoted himself to visionary church decoration schemes, metalwork, jewellery, lecturing and writing. He was associated with the circle of William Richard Lethaby in the Liverpool Cathedral Scheme of 1902. Wilson was both Master of the Art Workers Guild and President of the Arts and Crafts Society. He was a brilliant church interior designer who worked in a variety of styles.
No further information available at present.
The post of Bursar of the Royal College of Music was created in 1923, with responsibility, under the Council, for the financial administration, property and buildings of the College. Its first incumbent was Mr E J N Polkinghorne, previously Head of the office staff at the RCM, who held the office until 1946, to be followed by Ernest Stammers (1946-1956), Capt John T Shrimpton RN (1957-1971); Maj D A Imlay (1972-1984); Aidan P Miller (1984-1987) and Col W M Morgan (1987-1999). Following reorganisation the post was reconstituted as Head of Resources, with responsibility for the Secretariat, Finance Department, Personnel, Information Services, the Britten Theatre and Estates.
The Kirkmans were an English family of harpsichord and piano makers of Alsatian origin. Jacob Kirkman (b Bischweiler, 4 Mar 1710; d Greenwich, buried 9 Jun 1792) came to England in the early 1730s, and worked for Herman Tabel, whose widow he married in 1738. He took British citizenship on 25 Apr 1755, and in 1772 went into partnership with his nephew, Abraham Kirkman (b Bischweiler, 1737; d Hammersmith, buried 16 Apr 1794). Abraham Kirkman in turn took into partnership his son, Joseph Kirkman (i) (dates of birth and death unknown), whose son, Joseph Kirkman (ii) (c1790-1877), worked with his father on their last harpsichord in 1809. The firm continued as piano makers until absorbed by Collard in 1896.
Christian Burkard, one of the signatories of both documents (1) and (2) was a harpsichord builder living in Swallow Street, London and a cousin of Jacob Kirkman.
The action documented in (3) in 1771 by Jacob Kirkman against Robert Falkener was for Falkener's alleged attempts to sell harpsichords made by another maker as Kirkman instruments. Kirkman claimed £500 damages, though the outcome of the suit is not known.
Charles Thornton Lofthouse, born York, 12 Oct 1895; chorister, St Paul's Cathedral, 1904-1910; attended Royal Manchester College of Music; after World War One, studied the organ with Walter Parratt and conducting with Adrian Boult at the Royal College of Music; studied the piano with Alfred Cortot in Paris and the harpsichord with Aimee van der Wiele and Gustav Leonhardt; B Mus, 1930; D Mus, Trinity College, Dublin, 1935; accompanist to the London Bach Choir, 1921-1939; developed art of continuo playing, for which he was the first person to use a harpsichord in the Royal Albert Hall; professor at the RCM, 1922-1971; Director of Music at Westminster School, 1924-1939, and Reading University, 1939-1950; appointed examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1923, and acted as external examiner in music for several university institutes of education; created and conducted the University of London Music Society, 1934-1959; performed as a continuo, chamber or solo harpsichordist throughout Europe and in the USA; died London, 28 Feb 1974. Publications: Commentaries and Notes on Bach's Two- and Three-Part Inventions (London, 1956).
Charles Herbert Kitson, born, Leyburn, Yorkshire, 13 Nov 1874; took his arts degrees at Cambridge where he was organ scholar of Selwyn College, and his music degrees at Oxford as an external student; first major post was organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, 1913-1920; while there, was appointed Professor of Music, University College, Dublin, 1915; returned to England and joined the staff of the Royal College of Music, 1920; appointed Professor of Music, Trinity College, Dublin (then a non-resident post), 1920; retired, 1935; died London, 13 May 1944. Selected publications: The Art of Counterpoint, and its Application as a Decorative Principle (Oxford, 1907, 2nd edition, 1924); The Evolution of Harmony (Oxford, 1914, 2nd edition, 1924); Elementary Harmony (Oxford, 1920-1926, 2nd edition 1941).
H F Thornton was a horn student at the Royal College of Music. He subsequently played in the orchestra of the Royal Opera Company and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Wanda Landowska (1879-1959) was a Polish keyboard player and composer. She was a champion of 17th and 18th century music and the leading figure in the 20th century revival of the harpsichord. She first played the harpsichord in public in 1903 and subsequently made concert tours in Europe. In 1909 she published her book Musique ancienne, and in 1913 she began a harpsichord class at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin. After World War One, she returned to Paris, where she lectured at the Sorbonne and gave classes at the Ecole Normale. In 1925 she settled at Saint-Leu-la-Foret (north of Paris) where she founded an Ecole de Musique Ancienne which attracted students from all over the world to private and public courses; the summer concerts held in its concert hall (built 1927) were to become celebrated. There, in 1933, she gave the first integral performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Liz Karger (née Rosenberg) was a student of Landowska in 1929-1930 who made notes of Landowska's lessons.
John Law Dennison, born 1911; educated, Brighton College; entered Royal College of Music, 1932; played the horn in various major orchestras in London and Birmingham, 1933-1939; served in the army, World War Two; appointed Assistant Director of the British Council's music department, and Music Director of the Arts Council, 1948; made CBE, 1960; appointed General Manager of the Royal Festival Hall, 1965; Director of South Bank Concert Halls, 1971-1976.
Born Plymouth, 12 Dec 1913; produced and conducted an opera in Plymouth at age 17; won open scholarship to Royal College of Music, 1932; studied there under Ralph Vaughan Williams, R.O. Morris, Gordon Jacob and Arthur Benjamin, one of his fellow students being Peggy Glanville-Hicks, whom he was later to marry; won various prizes and studied under Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Paul Hindemith in Berlin; returned to England and commissioned to write his Piano Concertino, first performed at the Eastbourne Festival, 1937; became associated with the London stage and composed incidental music for a number of plays; two of his ballets Perseus and Cap over mill were produced in London, 1938; visited Australia as a lecturer and a solo performer of his own piano works; toured USA and Brazil in the 1940s where his music was well received, including the premier of his Second Piano concerto under Sir Thomas Beecham with the New York Philharmonic and his Second Sinfonietta at the festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in California, 1943; received further commissions for ballet and film music; returned to London in 1949; visited Brussels and Amsterdam as a soloist, later performances included the premier of his Concerto Grosso in Paris and the premier of his Third Symphony at the Cheltenham Festival, 1954; became depressed at the lack of recognition his music received in the UK, and committed suicide, London, 19 Oct 1959.
John Whitridge Wilson was born 21 Jan 1905; educated at Manchester Grammar School and Dulwich College; read Natural Science at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; joined staff of Repton School; left to study piano and organ at Royal College of Music; appointed Assistant Director of Music, Tonbridge School, 1929; appointed Assistant Director of Music, Charterhouse, 1932, and Director, 1947-1965; taught keyboard and score reading, RCM, 1962-1980; resumed Sixth Form teaching, Charterhouse, 1980; died 16 Jul 1992. Hymns for Church and School was published by Novello & Co in 1964. It was the retitled fourth edition of the Public School Hymn Book (PSHB), first published by Novello in 1903. Each edition was edited by a committee of the Headmasters' Conference, established in 1869, and including heads of all the major public schools and others eligible for representation. The 1903 publication comprised some 349 hymns and included hymns by contemporary schoolmaster-composers. A Companion to the Public School Hymn Book by Dr W M Furneaux, Dean of Winchester, was published in 1904, giving biographical details of the authors and indicating the sources of the hymns. A second edition of PSHB appeared in 1919. The volume had increased to 426 hymns and many of those which had appeared in 1903 were excised. Work on a third edition started in 1937 but was interrupted by the war, and it was not published until 1949. Craig Sellar Lang and Ralph Vaughan Williams had collaborated on editing this edition, and which had a supplementary revision in 1958. Some 100 hymns of the 1919 edition were rejected, and 250 new hymns added in their place, to give some 554 hymns and 484 tunes grouped according to seasons and purposes. In 1960, following publication of an article by John Wilson on the 1949 edition in The Hymn Society Bulletin, it was decided to appoint Wilson as Organising Secretary of a Committee of the Headmasters' Conference responsible for publishing a new edition. This contained 346 hymns (with 20 new additions) and 389 tunes, including 23 newly written by among others Sir William Harris, Herbert Howells and John Gardner. The Methodist Hymns and Songs was edited by Wilson and published by the Methodist Publishing House in 1969, as a popular supplement to the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book.
Lucy Jane Gibbons, of Gosport, Hants, was born on 14 Aug 1887 and was a student at the Royal College of Music, 1908-1909, studying the organ and piano.