All articles in Women in History
30th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History
The soundtrack to ‘Queens of Bohemia’
Introduction – G. Puccini, “Quando m’en vo'” La Boheme for Cello & Piano DARREN COFFIELD: Bohemian was a term used for those who lived unconventional lives, when the first Romani Gypsies appeared in sixteenth century France they were labelled bohemian and their non-conformist…
17th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
The legacy of Charlotte Brontë
21st April marks the anniversary of the birth of English novelist and poet Charlotte Brontë. While she lived only 38 years, her legacy – and her celebrity – have remained perennially present. Her 1847 novel Jane Eyre is one of the most enduring texts of the 19th century, a novel…
7th March, 2024 in Society & Culture, Women in History
Daisy Hopkins: The prostitute who fought against being imprisoned by Cambridge University
Cambridge University is internationally renowned for its ancient colleges. It is lauded for its educational excellence. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, infamy blighted its hallowed name. As an alarming number of courtroom dramas exposed the university’s steadfa…
19th January, 2024 in Local & Family History, Transport & Industry, Women in History
The Last Women of the Durham Coalfield – Hannah’s grand-daughter
This is the last book in the trilogy that started with my great great grandmother, Hannah Hall in the 1820’s as she re-located with her family to a new coal mine opening up in Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham. No-one at that time could have known the importance of that move. By 1822…
15th January, 2024 in Military, Women in History
Remembering Patricia Rorke: A remarkable woman who lived through World War II
Author of Remarkable Women of the Second World War, Victoria Panton Bacon, remembers Pat Rorke. Pat died on 9th December 2023, aged 100 years and five weeks. ‘After the war, you have to learn to live together, remember that you are all human … behind all the bare recounted facts…
6th September, 2023 in History, Women in History
The forgotten Boleyn
Shortly after the midsummer festivities of 1458 a more sombre procession wound its way towards the parish church of St Andrew’s in the Norfolk village of Blickling. Amongst the mourners was borne the body of Cecily Boleyn, whose soul had departed to God on 26 June and whose morta…
16th August, 2023 in Biography & Memoir, Women in History
Meeting the mothers: The women who shaped iconic female authors
For an author, writing a biography is rather like a love affair; there is a brief encounter, a rapport and then over the next few years you develop an intimate relationship with your subject. My latest book Mothers of the Mind about the remarkable women who shaped Virginia Woolf,…
25th July, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History
Walking you through ‘Private Inquiries’: The secret history of female sleuths
The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years. But what about the real-life women behind the fictional tales? Women like Victorian sleuth Antonia Moser, Annette Kerner, the ‘Mrs Sherlock Holmes’ of Baker Street, and Kate Easton, ‘London’s Le…
26th June, 2023 in Society & Culture, Women in History
Parliament’s working women: ‘Jane’ and the last days of Bellamy’s Refreshment Rooms
Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women by Mari Takayanagi and Elizabeth Hallam Smith is the first book to tell the stories of women who worked in Parliament, from housekeepers and kitchen staff in the nineteenth century through to the first women Cle…
11th May, 2023 in History, Women in History
Five things you may not know about Lady Katherine Grey
Learn more about the life and reign of Lady Katherine Grey, great-granddaughter of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, and sister of the ill-fated Lady Jane. 1. Although James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I upon her death in 1603, he was not the rightful successor according to…
4th May, 2023 in History, Society & Culture, Women in History
Wealth, poverty, and childbirth in Victorian Britain
What was it like to give birth in Victorian Britain? Much depended, of course, on individual circumstances: health, wealth, social – including marital – status, and access to medical care. For the Queen for whom the period is named, childbirth was a painful, in some respects unwe…
28th April, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History
Ask the author: Caitlin Davies on Queens of the Underworld – A history of female crooks
Author Caitlin Davies is a novelist, non-fiction writer, award-winning journalist and teacher. She is the author of six novels, six non-fiction books, and several short stories. Queens of the Underworld her history of female crooks, has recently been released in paperback. What i…