This weeks Illustrated Women in History was submitted by Rachel Nesbitt. Elsie Inglis Born 16th August 1864 in India, then moved to Edinburgh with her Father. She was a medical doctor as well as a suffrage campaigner. In 1887 Inglis started her studies at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, then at the University …
This weeks Illustrated Women in History was submitted by Clare Butler for the Illustrated Women in History exhibition 2017 at Swindon Central Library. Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was a woman once described as an armoured tank drawing enemy fire. She was a celebrated composer, author, musician, enthusiastic golfer, and, in her own words, a ‘militant …
Aletta H. Jacobs was the first woman to officially attend a Dutch University and the first female physician in the Netherlands. She was also a women’s suffrage activist and inventor. Jacobs was born in 1854 in Sappemeer, Netherlands to Abraham Jacobs, a physician and Anna de Jongh. From an early age, Jacobs would accompany her …
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was an English physician and feminist, she was the first female doctor to qualify in England. She opened a school of medicine for women, and paved the way for women’s medical education in Britain. Anderson was born in 1836 in Whitechapel, London to Newson and Louisa Dunnell Garrett. Her father had previously …
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh was a political activist and prominent member of the British suffragette movement. She also had a leading role in the Women’s Tax Resistance League. Singh was the daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last king of the Sikh Empire. He had become the Maharaja of Punjab in 1843 at the age …
Mary Carpenter was an English educational and social reformer. She brought education to poor children and young offenders in Bristol who had been previously denied it. Carpenter was born in 1807 in Exeter. In 1817 her family moved to Bristol and her father took charge of the Lewin’s Mead Unitarian meeting house. He also established …
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. She helped pass the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, and was a committed pacifist. Rankin was born in 1880 near Missoula, Montana. As a child, Rankin cleaned, sewed, and helped care for her younger siblings, in addition to sharing in …
Christabel Pankhurst was one of the driving forces of the Suffragette movement, she was a co-founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1880. She was the daughter of radical socialist Dr. Richard Pankhurst and women’s suffrage movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Her father had been responsible for drafting …
Annie Kenney was an English working class suffragette who became a leading figure in the Women’s Social and Political Union. Kenney started work at the age of 10 in a local cotton mill in Yorkshire. She was a cotton frame tenter and her duties were to crawl on her hands and knees under the machine …
Emily Wilding Davison is most famous for her tragic death when running into the path of King George V’s horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby on 4 June 1913. Thousands of suffragettes accompanied the coffin and tens of thousands lined the streets on the day of her funeral. Davison was a militant activist who fought …