1892
America
..... Hessie Donahue knocked out John L Sullivan, the Boston Strong Boy, who held the world heavyweight boxing crown. She was married to Charles Converse who ran a school for boxers in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1892 Sullivan was touring theatres, boxing with several sparring partners and as an extra attraction, Hessie, who was well acquainted with the sport, was invited to spar with him. They worked out an act and one night in the third round he caught her a hard blow to the face. Seething with anger she lashed out with a right to the jaw and the world champion hit the canvass where he stayed for a full minute. It caused a sensation and it was decided to keep the knock-out in the act. It continued for several months until he defended his title against ‘Gentleman Jim Corbett’ and was knocked out for the first time in his career by a man
England
..... Rollit's Private Members Suffrage Bill was defeated by only 23 votes. This greatly encouraged the suffragist organisations, which had become downhearted after the 1884 Act failed to include women in it's provision
..... Emily Jane Lloyd became the first woman member of the Institute of Chemistry
Finland
..... the League of Finnish feminists (UNIONI) was founded with the aims of suffrage and better education for women. One of its founders and first president, Lucina Hagman, helped to found one of the first co-ed schools in Finland and was also one of its directors. Almost one hundred years later in 1991 UNIONI operated through groups which worked for housing, peace, development aid, etc and there are theatre groups, language groups and organisations of women against violence and for the victims of rape. Free legal advice was available for women and the Women's Academy offered short courses and a small art gallery showed works by women. UNIONI is self supporting and has income which was donated and bequeathed by activists in the early years of its existence
Celebrated women born in this year
..... Diana Cooper - Lady neé Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners ..... born August 29th, she was the great eccentric of the Thirties socialites. She was the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland and was noted for her extravagance in the Roaring Twenties. In the 30s she led a ‘Brideshead re-visited’ lifestyle, moved in the highest circles and was one of the ‘set’ which revolved around the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson. Before the First World War she was tipped as a possible bride for the Prince. In 1919 she married the politician and writer Duff Cooper, who was created Earl of Norwich. She later took up acting and had the leading role in the 1922 film The Glorious Adventure. She also appeared on stage in America and Europe. She died in 1985
..... Djuna Barnes ..... American poet, novelist and playwright. The'Formidable Miss Barnes' a tall, black-caped beauty who was the raging aggressive literary enfant terrible who kept her abrasiveness until her death in 1982 at the age of 90 years. She was born in New York State and spent many years in France and Britain. She began writing for newspapers and as a founder member of the Theatre Guild, contributed to its magazine. Her anonymous novel Ladies Almanac was published in 1928 and caused a sensation because it poked affectionate fun at lesbian socialites such as Radclyffe Hall and Natalie Barney. In 1936 Nightwood was published, a novel about five bizarre characters living in Paris and it also created a scandal because of its sexuality. She was a journalist, playwright, poet, novelist and artist who had never been to school. After the 1930s she published very little but her work aroused renewed interest in the 70s and 80s for its bold treatment of lesbian relationships
..... Kathleen Harrison ....... born February 23rd in Lancashire she became a character actress renowned for playing Cockney roles. She made the first of her 100 films in 1915 and her career spanned seven decades. She is best remembered as Ma Huggett whom she portrayed on film and on radio. The Huggetts first appeared in the film Holiday Camp (1947) and then in the radio series The Huggetts in the 1950s. Joe Huggett, her husband, was played by Jack Warner. Other films include Hobsons Choice (1931) The Ghoul (1933) Oliver Twist (1948) Cast a Dark Shadow (1955) and her television roles include Betsy Prig in Martin Chuzzlewit. She found her widest audience in 1966 with Mrs Thursday, a television comedy by Ted Willis. She died in 1995 at the age of 103 years
..... Lilian Stacey neé Balkanyi ..... born January 9th, she escaped from Hungary after the crushing of the 1956 revolution by simply walking past soldiers into Austria on Christmas Eve. She was born in Hungary, the daughter of Dr Edouard Balkanyi and educated by Benedictine nuns before being sent to finishing school in Vienna. She married in 1912 and in the years that followed the First World War her diplomatic skills were well deployed. During the long depression of the 1920s and 30s she helped to organise soup kitchens in Debrecen and was active in local charities. During and after the Second World War she suffered harassment both from the Nazis and the Communists and so when her husband died in 1945 she moved to Budapest. She found a flat and between the end of the war and the Hungarian uprising she survived by selling her jewellery for food and medicine. In 1956, at the age of 64, she decided it was time to leave Hungary and so walked alone through the lines patrolled by Russian and Hungarian soldiers into Austria. From there she made her way to London, where her son was, anglicised her surname and began a new life. For a while she earned a living as a companion and was partly supported by her children and eventually received compensation from the German government. She died in 1996
..... Margaret Rutherford ..... born May 10th in London where she had a sad childhood which was dominated by her father’s insanity and her mother’s suicide. She was 40 years old when she took to the stage in the West End and was 50 years old before fame arrived in the guise of Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest. She was 53 years old when she married for the first time. Dame Rutherford became closely associated with the eccentric British ladies she played so well but is undoubtedly remembered for her portrayal of Miss Marple, the lady detective, a part she played when she was nearly 70. In the 60s she won an Oscar as a Heathrow passenger in The VIPS. She worked with Norman Wisdom, Alastair Sim, Frankie Howard, Ian Carmichael and Danny Kaye in some memorable films – Passport to Pimlico, Blithe Spirit, The Happiest Days of Your Life, On the Double and did four Miss Marple films for MGM. She died in 1972
..... Rebecca West neé Cicely Isabel Fairfield ..... youngest of three sisters whose father was an Irish journalist, gambler and womaniser who disappeared to Africa when she was eight and returned to die in Edinburgh five years later. She was educated in Edinburgh and became a feminist and socialist. Her first published work, at 14, was a pro-suffrage letter in The Scotsman. At the age of 19, after a spell as a drama student, she launched into the literary world with her articles for The Freewoman and took her pen name from Ibsen's free-thinking heroine. By her early twenties she was a respected critic, with a book on Henry James and an acclaimed novelist, with The Return of the Soldier and The Judge. In 1914 she gave birth to a son, Anthony, by the author H G Wells with whom she had had a secret affair. The child was introduced as her "nephew and sent off to school at the age of three. Her son never forgave her. In the mid-1950s he wrote a vengeful novel Heritage and she spent two years refuting his views in hundreds of letters. In 1959 she was made DBE and died in 1983, noted as one of the century's greatest women
..... Victoria Mary Sackville-West ( Vita) ..... writer and gardener who was born on March 9th in Kent and brought up at Knole, a Tudor palace, one of the largest houses in England, and was bitterly disappointed that she could not inherit the estate as she was a woman. She was educated at home and travelled to France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Austria and Spain and in 1913 married Harold Nicolson. They had three sons, one of whom died at birth, and then from 1918 to 1921 she began a passionate love affair with Violet Trefusis and from time to time they would go off together. Her husband was a diplomat and also a homosexual and between them they had a mutual understanding and affection which their marriage survived although they did not live together permanently until he retired in 1929. Between 1922 and 1937 she produced several novels and poems, one of which The Land in 1926 earned her the Hawthornden prize the following year. Vita then began a friendship with Virginia Woolf and this continued until Virginia committed suicide in 1941. After Harold retired they bought Sissinghurst where they designed and created one of the most unusual and beautiful gardens in England and during the Second World War Vita worked for the Women's Land Army. She continued to write and in 1948 was created CH. From 1946 to 1961 she wrote a gardening column for the Observer and in 1955 was awarded the Veitch memorial medal by the Royal Horticultural Society. Her last novel No Signposts in the Sea was published in 1961 and she died on June 2nd the following year. Sissinghurst passed to the National Trust and is visited every year by thousands to see the gardens and the room in the tower where she wrote her books
..... Violet Inglis ..... in India where her family had a long record as civil servants. When her father died she returned to London with her family and enrolled as an art student at Battersea College, then studied at Chelsea and St. Martins. During this time she also worked for the London Women’s Suffrage Society and walked in peaceful processions organised by the NUWSS. With her sister Etta, they were among the first to become VADs in the First World War and after training were sent to France with the 1st Scottish Women’s Hospital Unit. Here they established a military Red Cross hospital in the 700 year old disused Abbey ofad Royaumont on the River Cise, 25 miles from Paris. Violet was later posted to a second hospital at Troyes, the first one where French soldiers were nursed in tents. She was eventually awarded the Croix de Guerre. After the war she returned to London where she continued her work as an artist. In the Second World War she was commissioned into the Women’s Royal Army Corps and served in London. She never married and died in 1992, believed to be the last surviving member of the ‘gallant band of women’ who nursed the wounded in France, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania and Russia during the Great War
..... Zita of Austria - Empress neé Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma ..... daughter of Duke Robert 1 of Parma and Consort of Karl, the last Hapsburg Emperor and together they shared the historic throne of the Holy Roman Empire. She was crowned Queen of Hungary and Budapest with her husband beside her wearing St Stephen's Crown as Apostolic King. In the 1914-18 war she was at the very centre of affairs, as consort of one of the 'Big Four' monarchs and of the three other consorts -Alexandria of Russia was murdered in 1918, Augusta Victoria of Germany died in 1921 and Queen Mary of England died in 1953. Her links with European history through her parents were as remarkable as those of her own life. She married her husband in 1911 and they had five sons and three daughters and in 1914 her husband succeeded to the throne when his parents were killed. Although he was a soldier he hated the war and in 1917 attempted to bring it to an end, the only serious effort made by any leader of any of the belligerent powers at the time. Had it succeeded millions of lives would have been saved. He became known both as the "Peace emperor" and the "Emperor of the People" but in 1918, with the defeat of the Austrian forces, his empire collapsed around him. He refused to abdicate but agreed to withdraw from all affairs of state, while remaining in Austria. A few months later however the family was exiled into Switzerland and in 1921 when Karl made two attempts to regain his throne, he was defeated each time . A result of this was that they were banished to Madeira where he died of pneumonia in 1922 aged only 34 years. Two months later Zita gave birth to their daughter Elisabeth. The family settled in Belgium and during the 1939-45 war moved to America and then to Mexico and then returned to Switzerland where she spent her long widowhood in retirement and devoted herself to her family and the memory of her husband. She travelled frequently and when she paid her first visit to Austria since the fall of the monarchy was given a tumultuous reception. She was 96 years old when she died in 1989