A Z of significant British Women fileA Potted A-Z of Pioneering British Women 3 Background The Bank...

APOTTEDA‐ZOFSIGNIFICANTBRITISH

WOMENIn support of the Women’s Room UK Banknote Campaign at

http://thewomensroom.org.uk/banknotes and in honour and loving memory of Barbara Hughes 25th June 1927 – 25th May 2013

Figure 1Link here to Women's Room Banknotes Campaign

JUNE 1, 2013 HELEN CATON‐HUGHES

[email protected]

A Potted A-Z of Pioneering British Women

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ContentsBackground ................................................................................................................. 3

Jane Austen 1775-1817 .............................................................................................. 5

Mary Anning ............................................................................................................... 5

Boudicca ...................................................................................................................... 6

Agnes Clerke ............................................................................................................... 7

Emily Davidson .......................................................................................................... 8

Elizabeth Elstob ......................................................................................................... 9

Rosalind Franklin ..................................................................................................... 10

Millicent Fawcett (1846 - 1929) .............................................................................. 10

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson ................................................................................... 11

Kathleen McKane Godfree .................................................................................... 11

Dorothy Hodgkin 1910-1994 ................................................................................. 12

Jacquetta Hawkes ..................................................................................................... 12

Octavia Hill ............................................................................................................... 12

Susanna Inge ............................................................................................................. 13

Gertrude Jekyll .......................................................................................................... 14

Amy Johnson ............................................................................................................ 14

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace ............................................................ 15

Jennie Lee .................................................................................................................. 16

Mo Mowlam .............................................................................................................. 17

Daphne Du Maurier ................................................................................................. 17

Lady Mary Montagu ................................................................................................. 17

Florence Nightingale ................................................................................................ 18

Margaret Oliphant .................................................................................................... 19

Emmeline Pankhurst ............................................................................................... 20

Beatrix Potter, British Mycologist .......................................................................... 20

Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps .................................................................... 21

Anita Roddick ........................................................................................................... 22

Sue Ryder ................................................................................................................... 22

Lady Hester Stanhope ............................................................................................. 23

Marie Stopes .............................................................................................................. 23


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Mary Jane Seacole ..................................................................................................... 23

Linda Smith ............................................................................................................... 23

Dame Elizabeth Taylor, DBE ................................................................................ 24

Dame Sybil Thorndike, CH DBE ......................................................................... 24

Evelyn Underhill ....................................................................................................... 25

Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797 ............................................................................. 27

Virginia Woolf .......................................................................................................... 27


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Background

The Bank of England may sound like an unlikely location for the latest battle for gender equality. Some people may argue that there are more important fields of feminist battle, than whether a woman, other than the reigning monarch, should appear on a banknote.

The background to this is that the Bank recently announced that Elizabeth Fry is to be removed from the £10 notes, to be replaced by Winston Churchill. As a result, in this age of so-called gender equality, the only woman to be featured on banknotes will be the Queen. Whatever her achievements, she is there because of her position, and an accident of birth.

Nor am I denying a place to Churchill. It’s just that the Bank of England have paid insufficient regard to the serious issues of equality.

This campaign is one way of raising the wider issues, as well as bringing together men and women who care about gender equality. You can read more about the campaign, and connect to the press coverage, here

So what are the 'wider issues'?

National Institutions, whatever their purpose, should represent all sections of society. Women are NOT a minority either. We're 51% of the population and when properly deployed in British business add around 11 extra points to an organisation's success. We're tax-payers and wealth-creators. Personally I will have worked for 40 years next year and I know I've put back into the economy more than I've taken out, to date.

This is about leadership

We know that having greater equality in society leads to a more successful, and peaceful society. Having women recognised for their contribution is one further step towards that success - which benefits us all.

The Bank of England is an influential organisation. It's a figure-head for the British economy. I'm looking forward to welcoming it's new Governor, Mark Carney. Perhaps even more significant is the appointment of two women to the Bank's senior team: Charlotte Hogg will become its most senior female employee in 300+ years. Ex-BBC Jenny Scott will become its Director of Communications.

A significant part of leading and developing others is to have meaningful role models in all walks of life. When younger women see that it's possible to progress their careers in this institution, perhaps they'll raise their sights as a result.

Perhaps one of these women leaders might assign a task to one of their team to search out potential women to put on the British banknote?

This is why have I spent time researching a partial A_Z of significant British Women

“I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth now. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body, and my outraged daughters.”


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Bouddica

One letter deserves particular mention - Q - for Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps

This is dedicated to all women working in the military, past and present – and in all parts of the armed forces.

The list I’ve compiled doesn’t pretend to be complete, but with its scientists, artists, writers and political pioneers, it does show that there are many women who deserve to take their place on a British banknote.The list is not beautifully edited, or original – I totally acknowledge it’s existence is thanks to the cut and paste method.

I also acknowledge and thank the following sources:

http://www.biographyonline.net/

www.biography.com

www.wikipedia.com

Octavia Hill http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2012/mar/04/ten-best-female-pioneers#/?picture=386781632&index=8

Chartist’s Association: http://chartists.net/Walker-and-Inge.htm

Any errors and omissions are mine.

If you’d like to propose additional names for this list, please do. I look forward to hearing from you.

Helen Caton Hughes – contact me at [email protected]

In honour and loving memory of my Mother-in-Law, Barbara Hughes, 25th June 1927 – 25th May 2013.

June 27 2013


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A

Jane Austen 1775-1817

One of the most popular female authors Jane Austen wrote several novels, which remain highly popular today. These include “Pride and Prejudice” “Emma” and “Northanger Abbey”. Jane Austen wrote at a time when female writers were very rare, helping pave the way for future writers.

Mary Anning

Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was a British fossil collector, dealer, and paleontologist who became known around the world for a number of important finds she made in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis in Dorset, where she lived.[2] Her work contributed to fundamental changes that occurred during her lifetime in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.


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B

Boudicca

Boudicca 1st Century AD

Boudicca was an inspirational leader of the Britons. She led several tribes in revolt against the Roman occupation. Initially successful her army of 100,000 sacked Colchester and then London. Her army was eventually completely destroyed in battle by the Romans.


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C

Agnes Clerke

Agnes Mary Clerke (10 February 1842 – 20 January 1907) was an astronomer and writer, mainly in the field of astronomy. In 1892 she was awarded the Actonian Prize of 100 guineas

by the Royal Institution. As a member of the British Astronomical Association she attended its meetings regularly, as well as those of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1903, with Lady Huggins, she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society, a rank previously held only by two other women, Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville.


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D

Emily Davidson

Born in London, England, on October 11, 1872, Emily Wilding Davison joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1906, then quit her teaching job to work full-time for equal voting rights. A militant member of the British suffragette movement, Davison was jailed several times for protest-related offenses and attempted to starve herself while serving time in Manchester's Strangeways Prison. In 1913, she stepped in front of a horse during the Epsom Derby and died of her injuries.


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E

Elizabeth Elstob

Elizabeth Elstob (1683–1756), the "Saxon Nymph", was born and brought up in the Quayside area of Newcastle upon Tyne, and, like Mary Astell of Newcastle, is nowadays regarded as one of the first English feminists. She was proficient in eight languages and became a pioneer in Anglo-Saxon studies, an unprecedented achievement for a woman in the period.

In London she translated Madeleine de Scudéry's Essay upon Glory in 1708 and an English-Saxon Homily on the Nativity of St Gregory in 1709. Both works are dedicated to Queen Anne, who is praised in feminist prefaces.


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F

Rosalind Franklin

Born in 1920 in London, Rosalind Franklin earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cambridge University. She learned crystallography and X-ray diffraction, techniques that she applied to DNA fibers. One of her photographs provided key insights into DNA structure. Other scientists used it as the basis for their DNA model and took credit for the discovery. Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958, at age 37.

Millicent Fawcett (1846 - 1929)

Millicent Garrett Fawcett was a leading suffragist and campaigner for equal rights for women. She led Britain's biggest suffrage organisation, the non-violent (NUWSS) and played a key role in gaining women the vote. She also helped found Newnham College, Cambridge.


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G

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, LSA, MD (9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917), was an English physician and feminist, the first Englishwoman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in Britain, the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first female M.D. in France, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as Mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor and magistrate in

Britain.

Kathleen McKane Godfree

Kathleen "Kitty" McKane Godfree (born 7 May 1896, Bayswater, London – died 19 June 1992, London) was a British female tennis and badminton player.[1]

According to Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Godfree was ranked in the world top ten from 1921 (when the rankings began) through 1927, reaching a career high of World No. 2 in those rankings in 1923, 1924, and 1926.[2][3]

Godfree won five Olympic medals in tennis at the 1920 Antwerp and 1924 Paris games, the most Olympic medals ever won by a tennis player.[4] In 1923 she captured the title at the World Covered Court Championships. Godfree won the Wimbledon singles title twice. In the 1924 final, Godfree recovered from a

set and 4–1 (40–15) down against Helen Wills Moody to win the title. This was the only defeat at Wimbledon for Moody who would go on to win eight titles. In the 1926 final, Godfree recovered from a 3–1 and game-point-against deficit in the third set to defeat Lili de Alvarez.

Godfree's lifetime record at Wimbledon was 38–11 in singles, 33–12 in women's doubles, and 40–12 in mixed doubles.[5] Godfree received a Centenary medallion on Wimbledon's Centre Court in 1977.[5] She presented the winner's trophy to Martina Navratilova in 1986, in honor of the centenary year of play at Wimbledon.[6][7] Godfree was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978. In badminton, Godfree won nine All England Open Badminton Championships from 1920 through 1925, considered the unofficial World Badminton Championships[8] until 1977.

Figure 2Kathleen McKane Godfree (left) and Suzanne Lenglen at the French Championships in 1925


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H

Dorothy Hodgkin 1910-1994

Awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry Dorothy Hodgkin work on critical discoveries of the structure of both penicillin and later insulin. These discoveries led to significant improvements in health care. An outstanding chemist Dorothy also devoted a large section of her life to the peace movement and promoting nuclear disarmament.

Jacquetta Hawkes

Jacquetta Hawkes (5 August 1910 – 18 March 1996) was a British archaeologist and writer.

Born Jessie Jacquetta Hopkins, the daughter of Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, she married first Christopher Hawkes, then an Assistant Keeper at the British Museum, in 1933. From 1953, she was married to J. B. Priestley. She is perhaps best known generally for her book A Land (1951). She was a prolific writer on subjects quite removed from her principal field. She was above all interested in discovering the lives of the peoples revealed by scientific excavations. With her first husband, Christopher Hawkes, she co-authored Prehistoric Britain (1943) and with J. B. Priestley she wrote Dragon's Mouth (1952) and Journey Down a Rainbow (1955). Her other works include The World of the Past (1963), "Prehistory (History of Mankind: Cultural and Scientific Development, Volume 1 Part 1)" (1963) prepared under the auspices of UNESCO, The Atlas of Early Man (1976) and The Shell Guide to British Archaeology (1986).

Octavia Hill

(1838-1912)Hill is best known for co-founding the National Trust, but she was also a tireless campaigner on issues ranging from the importance of education to the protection of green spaces in and around London. She was particularly concerned with the welfare of people in cities and was a driving force behind the creation of social housing, setting up the first ever housing association. The National Trust evolved from her desire to get people in the city out to the country. She has been called 'Britain’s greatest ever social entrepreneur', and has had a huge influence on the way we

live today


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I

Susanna Inge

Susanna Inge is first encountered writing an address “to the women of England” which appeared in the Northern Star (2 July, 1842) in which she signs herself a “Member of the Female Charter Association of the City of London”.

This literate and well written address argues that,

“as civilisation advances man becomes more inclined to place woman on an equality with himself, and though excluded

from everything connected with public life, her condition is considerably improved”.

She goes on to say, however, that this is not sufficient, and that women should

“assist those men who will, nay, who do, place women in on equality with themselves in gaining their rights, and yours will be gained also”.

Figure 3 There is no available picture of Inge. This image of her fellow female Chartist, Mary Ann Walker as portrayed in Punch


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J

Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll (/ˈdʒiːkәl/ JEE-kәl; 29 November 1843—8 December 1932) was an influential British horticulturist, garden designer, artist[1] and writer. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over 1,000 articles[1] for to Country Life magazine, The Garden and other magazines.[2] Jekyll has been described as "a premier influence in garden design" by English and American gardening enthusiasts.[1]

Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson CBE, (1 July 1903 – 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English aviator.[N 1] Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, Johnson set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s. Johnson flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary where she died during a ferry flight.[1]


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K

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace

Daughter of famed poet Lord Byron, Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace—better known as "Ada Lovelace"—was born in London on December 10, 1815. Ada showed her gift for mathematics at an early age. She translated an article on an invention by Charles Babbage, and added her own comments. Because she introduced many computer concepts, Ada is considered the first computer programmer.


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L

Jennie Lee

Jennie Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge PC (3 November 1904 – 16 November 1988) was born Janet Lee in Lochgelly, in Fife, Scotland. The daughter of James Lee, a miner (who later gave up work in the mines to run a hotel) and Euphemia Grieg, she inherited her father's socialist inclinations, and like him joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP).[1]

She was appointed arts minister in the Harold Wilson government of 1964 and played a key role in the formation of the Open University, an act described by Wilson as the greatest of his time in

government. Lee renewed the charter of the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1967 which saw an expansion of its work in the regions as well of the creation of the new arts institutions at London's South Bank Centre. She also introduced the only UK White Paper for the Arts and following the 1967 reshuffle was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science after two years as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. Between 1964 and 1965 Lee had been Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Public Building and Works.


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M

Mo Mowlam

Marjorie "Mo" Mowlam (18 September 1949 – 19 August 2005) was a British Labour Party politician. She was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Redcar from 1987 to 2001 and served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Mowlam's time as Northern Ireland Secretary saw the signing of the historic Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998. Her personal charisma, reputation for plain speaking and her fight against a brain tumour led her to be perceived by many as one of the most popular "New Labour" politicians in the UK. When Tony Blair mentioned her in his speech at the 1998 Labour Party Conference, she received a standing ovation.

Daphne Du Maurier

Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE (/ˈdæfni duː ˈmɒri.eɪ/; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English author and playwright.

Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca (which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1941) and Jamaica Inn and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now. The

first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the latter by Nicolas Roeg.

Lady Mary Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (15 May 1689 – 21 August 1762) was an English aristocrat and writer. Montagu is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient”.[1] Lady Mary returned to the West with knowledge of the Ottoman practice of inoculation against smallpox, known as variolation. In the 1790s, Edward Jenner developed a safer method, vaccination.


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N

Florence Nightingale

1820-1910

By serving in the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale was instrumental in changing the role and perception of the nursing profession. Her dedicated service won widespread admiration and led to a significant improvement in the treatment of wounded soldiers.


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O

Margaret Oliphant

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (née Margaret Oliphant Wilson) (4 April 1828 – 25 June 1897), was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant.

In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, at Birkenhead, and settled at Harrington Square in London. An artist working mainly in stained glass, her husband had delicate health, and three of their six children died in infancy,[1] while the father himself developed alarming symptoms of consumption. For the sake of his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then to Rome, where Frank Oliphant died. His wife, left almost entirely

without resources, returned to England and took up the burden of supporting her three remaining children by her own literary activity.

In the 1880s she was the literary mentor of the Irish novelist Emily Lawless.


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P

Emmeline Pankhurst

A British suffragette, Emily Pankhurst dedicated her life to the promotion of women’s rights. She explored all avenues of protest including violence, public demonstrations and hunger strikes. She died in 1928, 3 weeks before a law giving all women over 21 the right to vote.

Beatrix Potter, British Mycologist

Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.

she illustrated insects, fossils, archaeological artefacts, and fungi. In the 1890s her mycological illustrations and research on the reproduction of fungi spores generated interest from the scientific establishment. She is credited with preserving much of the land that now comprises the Lake District National Park.


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Q

Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps

The letter ‘Q’ is dedicated to all women working in the military, past and present – and in all parts of the armed forces.

The WAACs marching in London at the end of World War I, 1918

The winning Queen Mary's Auxiliary Army Corps tug-o-war at the New Zealand Infantry and General Base Depot, Etaples, France, 3 August 1918

The UK's Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (1917–1918) was later named Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (1918–1920). Over 57,000 women served between January 1917 and November 1918. On 31 March 1917 women in the WAAC were first sent to the battlefields in France, just 14 cooks and waitresses.[1] Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was the Senior Officer overseas, and Florence Leach was the controller of the cooks. The corps was disbanded in September 1921. The last WAAC veteran was Ivy Lillian Campany, who died in 2008.


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R

Anita Roddick

Dame Anita Roddick, DBE (23 October 1942 – 10 September 2007) was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of The Body Shop, a cosmetics company producing and retailing beauty products that shaped ethical consumerism.[1][2] The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of

ingredients tested on animals and one of the first to promote fair trade with third world countries.

Roddick was involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues, including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue. In 1990, Roddick founded Children On The Edge, a charitable organisation which helps disadvantaged children in eastern Europe and Asia.[3]

Sue Ryder

Margaret Susan Cheshire, Baroness Ryder of Warsaw and Baroness Cheshire, CMG, OBE (3 July 1924 – 2 November 2000), best known as Sue Ryder, was a British volunteer with Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, who afterwards led many charitable organizations, notably the charity named in her honour.

After the war was over, Ryder volunteered to do relief work, including some in Poland. She was appointed OBE in 1957.

In 1959 Ryder married Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC (later Lord Cheshire), the founder of the major UK charity Leonard Cheshire Disability. Both Cheshire and Ryder were Roman Catholic converts. They received a joint Variety Club Humanitarian Award in 1975. Ryder was appointed CMG in 1976.


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S

Lady Hester Stanhope

Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope (12 March 1776 – 23 June 1839) was a British socialite, adventurer and traveler. Her archaeological expedition to Ashkelon in 1815 is considered the first modern excavation in the history of Holy Land archeology. Her use of a medieval Italian document is described as "one of the earliest uses of textual sources by field archaeologists". [1]

Marie Stopes

In 1918 Stopes wrote a concise guide to contraception called Wise Parenthood.and in 1921 founded the Society for Constructive Birth Control. Marie Stopes was involved in several other crusades during her life. This included an attempt to stop education authorities from sacking married women teachers. Marie also become involved in the campaign to persuade the Inland Revenue to tax husbands and wives separately.

Mary Jane Seacole

Mary Jane Seacole (1805 – 14 May 1881), née Grant,[1][2] was a Jamaican-born woman of Scottish and Creole descent who set up a 'British Hotel' behind the lines during the Crimean War, which she described as "a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers," and provided succour for wounded servicemen on the battlefield.[2] She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991. In 2004 she was voted the greatest Black Briton.[3]

Linda Smith

Linda Helen Smith (29 January 1958 – 27 February 2006) was a British stand-up comic and comedy writer. She appeared regularly on Radio 4 panel games, and was voted "Wittiest Living Person" by listeners in 2002. After appearing on Radio 4's Devout Sceptics to discuss her beliefs she was asked by the British Humanist Association (BHA) to become president of the society – a role that she occupied with

great commitment from 2004 until her death.[3] In 2002, she was voted 'Wittiest Living Person' by listeners to BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth.[4] During The News Quiz she would often mockingly use Richard Littlejohn's catchphrase "to hell in a handcart".


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T

Dame Elizabeth Taylor, DBE

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American[2] actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty, and distinctive violet eyes.

From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends".

Dame Sybil Thorndike, CH DBE

Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE (24 October 1882 – 9 June 1976) was a British actress.

Thorndike was an active member of the Labour Party, and held strong left-wing views. Even when the 1926 General Strike stopped the first run of Saint Joan, she still supported the strikers. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1931. As a pacifist, Thorndike was a member of the Peace Pledge Union and gave readings for

its benefit. During World War II, Thorndike and her husband toured in Shakespearean productions on behalf of the Council For the Encouragement of the Arts, before joining Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson in the Old Vic season at the New Theatre in 1944.[2]

Her final acting appearance was in a TV drama The Great Inimitable Mr Dickens, with Anthony Hopkins in 1970.

The same year she was made a Companion of Honour. She and her husband (who was knighted in 1945) were one of the few couples who both held titles in their own right. She had also been awarded an honorary degree from Manchester University in 1922, and an honorary D.Litt from Oxford University in 1966.


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U

Evelyn Underhill

Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism.

In the English-speaking world, she was one of the most widely read writers on such matters in the first half of the 20th century. No other book of its type—until the appearance in 1946 of Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy—met with success to match that of her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911.[1]

Underhill was called simply "Mrs Moore" by many of her friends, but was not without her detractors. She was a prolific author and published over 30 books either under her maiden name, Underhill, or under the pseudonym "John Cordelier", as was the case for the 1912 book The Spiral Way. Initially an agnostic, she gradually began to acquire an interest in Neoplatonism and from there became increasingly drawn to Catholicism against the objections of her husband, becoming eventually a prominent Anglo-Catholic.

More than any other person, she was responsible for introducing the forgotten authors of medieval and Catholic spirituality to a largely Protestant audience and the lives of eastern mystics to the English speaking world. As a frequent guest on radio, her 1936 work The Spiritual Life was especially influential as transcribed from a series of broadcasts given as a sequel to those by Dom Bernard Clements on the subject of prayer. Fellow theologian Charles Williams wrote the introduction to her published Letters in 1943, which reveal much about this prodigious woman. Upon her death, The Times reported that on the subject of theology, she was "unmatched by any of the professional teachers of her day."


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W

Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the most significant book in the early feminist movement. Her tract “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” laid down a clear moral and practical basis for extending human and political rights to women. - A true pioneer in the struggle for female suffrage.

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf (/ˈwʊlf/; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's

Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."


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Z

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