1894
England
..... women were allowed to vote for and sit on parish councils, having already been allowed to vote in county council elections (1888 onwards) also District Councillors and Poor Law Guardians
..... ‘A Crewe Factory Girl’ which is how she signed herself, infuriated her boss by writing a series of sharp but courteous and literate letters to a local newspaper about the shocking conditions at his factory and the unfairness of a piece rate system which blatantly favoured men more than women. Her name was Ada Nield and because of these letters she lost her job at the factory but went on to become an early suffragette and socialist, preaching her revolutionary messages on a makeshift touring van. Her daughter is Doris Nield Chew, history teacher, who wrote her mother’s biography which was turned into a television play
..... as a result of the campaigns of Margaret McMillan, the first ever school medical officer was appointed
India
..... this year saw the founding of the North India School of Medicine whose principal was Dr Edith Brown. It was the outcome of a conference of women medical missionaries representing seven missionary societies of various denominations who felt that the only way to supply the much needed medical attention to the women of India was to train native women as doctors, dispensers and nurses. The school was established in conjunction with a hospital and it owed its marvelous success to the organizing capabilities and medical and surgical skill of Dr Brown. The school was unique in India in that it only trained women for the medical profession
Italy
..... Maria Montessori became the first woman in Italy to gain a medical degree
Celebrated women born in this year
..... Amy Swallow ..... born May 30th, the only daughter of a Manchester mill owner. Her father was told that it was unlikely that she would live to the age of seven but in fact she lived to be 96 years old having enjoyed a triple career in nursing, music and speech therapy. She nursed at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton and after the First World War returned to Manchester to train as a pianist where she accompanied Dame Isobel Baillie and others. However it was her experiences of nursing soldiers during the war which led her to becoming a speech therapist and she gave up her musical career to train at the West End Hospital training school. She was a founder fellow of the College of Speech Therapists and worked closely with Winefred Kingdon-Ward, whom she succeeded as principal of the Kingdon-Ward training school from 1950 to 1970. She died in 1990
..... Chrissie White ..... British star of the silent screen whose films include For the Little Lady’s Sake (1908) Tilly the Tomboy goes Boating (1910) Lily of the Alley (1923) and The Wonderful World of Wonderful Reality (1924). In 1933 she made a brief comeback in ‘talkies’ in her final film General John Regan. She died in 1989
..... Elizabeth Cockayne ..... one of the most influential but little-known figures of the National Health Service who acted as its chief nursing officer from its inception in 1948 until her early retirement . She was born in Burton on Trent and decided to become a nurse because of her own experience at the age of two years when she had smallpox and later at the age of 17 when she developed scarlatina. She trained as a fever nurse at the Borough Hospital, Plymouth and then went to Sheffield Royal Infirmary. She was only in her fourth year there when she was put in charge of the theatre. In 1953 she attended the International Congress of Nurses and a year later chaired the World Health Organisation Expert Committee on Nursing. She was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Council of Nurses and in 1955 appointed DBE. She died in 1988
..... Elsa Resphighi neé Elsa Olivierie Sangiacomo ..... born March 24th in Rome, in 1915 she enrolled at the Academy of Saint Cecilia in Rome in the musical classes of the man who became her husband, Ottorino Resphighi. She became an accomplished composer herself and completed her husband’s opera Lucrezia after his death and wrote several well-received operas, dramatic canticles on her own account and adapted her husband’s work for the ballet. Her memoirs Fifty Years of a Life in Music form the basis of an abridged biography of her husband. It was published in 1962. She lived for 60 years after his death until her own in 1996 and devoted her widowhood to a passionate crusade to rescue his memory from the smears that were attached to it through his alleged association with Mussolini. Her house in Rome was a place of pilgrimage for Respighi enthusiasts from all over the world
..... Eve Disher ..... painter who was born in north London where her father was employed by a livery company. She studied at the Hornsey College of Art before running away from home in 1918 to marry Maurice Willson Disher, theatre critic for the Evening Standard and an authority on the history of clowns and circuses. She moved in varied and unlikely circles from the Bloomsbury set to the world of Noel Coward and Ian Fleming. When her marriage ended she shared a studio for a while with Vera Cunningham, model and mistress of the painter Matthew Smith. She travelled to the West Indies and South Africa where she delighted in the vivid and exotic colours of the brilliant landscapes there. Her portraits ranged from Sir Arthur Elton to a trio of John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull and she also painted Sir John Betjeman. In her later years her eyesight failed and she could not discern between one colour and the next. Her paintings have been shown in recent times at Foyles Art Gallery in 1987. She died in 1991
..... Gladys Hill ..... born September 28th at Crewe, Cheshire and in 1925 she qualified as a doctor, studied under Marie Curie and overcame prejudice to become an obstetrician and gynaecologist. She became an obstetician in 1935 at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital and five years later became senior gynaecologist at the Royal Free. This was the post she had set her sights on from the day she qualified. In 1906 she went to Cheltenham Ladies’ College where Dorothea Beale was headmistress and in 1913 was received at Somerville College, Oxford. When she was 17 she learned to drive a car but did not pass the modern driving test until she was 96. She was inspired to become a doctor after meeting Winifred Cullis at the Royal Free hospital and so in 1917 went to study at the London School of Medicine for Women. This was one of only three places where women were accepted as students. She qualified in 1925 and went to Paris. In 1936 she became a Fellow of the Royal College of surgeons and in 1943 a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. On her 100th birthday the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists gave a lunch to celebrate their only centenarian. She died in 1998
..... Jane Turner neé Jane Emily Buller Turner ..... born December 12th, she came from a remarkable family. Her half-brother won an MC, two brothers won the Victoria Cross and another the DSO. Neither she or any of her brothers married and all lived together in Norfolk where they rented a house on the estate of Brigadier Bill Carr. They were not well off and lived on their pensions. Their one extravagance was shooting. Her eldest brother Alexander, was awarded a posthumous VC after a single-handed assault during the Battle of Loos in 1915. Jane was the last of the family to die in 1996 at the age of 101 years
..... Marie Henriette Goossens ..... harpist who was born August 11th in London and brought up in Liverpool and from the beginning of her life mingled with the greatest musicians of the day. Her grandfather, Eugene, came to London from Bruges in 1873 with his wife, Sidonie, a ballerina, and became conductor of the Carl Rosa Opera. Her father, Eugene had five children and Marie was the second born. When her sister, Sidonie, was cast in the role of harpist and Marie saw her instrument in the hall she developed an irrepressible desire to become a harpist as well. At this time the harp was the only instrument that women could then play in an orchestra. She made her professional debut in 1910 at Liverpool and then went to study at the Royal College of Music. During the First World War she worked in the civil service and afterwards became principal harpist for the Russian ballet. From 1921 to 1930 she was with the Covent Garden Opera and Sir Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall orchestra and in the 1930s held the same post in Beecham’s London Philharmonic. From 1921 to 1930 she was with the Covent Garden Opera and Sir Henry Wood’s Queen’s Hall orchestra and in the 1930s held the same post in Beecham’s London Philharmonic and in the 1940s and 1950s – the London Symphony Orchestra. She was also Professor of Harp at the Royal College of Music from 1954 to 1967. In 1981 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Music and appointed OBE in 1984. She died in 1991
..... Rosaleen Cooper neé Graves ..... sister of the poet Robert Graves she was born on March 7th. At the age of 12 she published her first book The Woodcutter and The Fairies with considerable success and it duly appeared on the London primary school reading lists. She earned a farthing on every copy sold. She later published two books of poems and at the age of 88 produced Games from an Edwardian Childhood. Her son Roger, was held hostage in 1985 in Teheran and she campaigned vigorously for his release until her death in 1989
..... Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley neé Sybil Rachel Betty Cecilie Sassoon ..... born January 30th, she became chatelaine of Houghton in Norfolk and the last private resident of Kensington Palace Gardens, commonly known as “Millionaires’ Row”. In the First World War she was an assistant principal in the WRNS and rose to become Superintendent in WW2. One of her duties was to organise royal visits and other ceremonies. Houghton was the great house built for the first Prime Minister of England, Sir Robert Walpole, and she rebuilt the splendid double staircase in 1973 as a memorial to her husband. She was a celebrated figure in society and in 1984 President Mitterrand paid a special visit to Houghton at the end of his state visit to Britain to invest her with the Legion d’ Honneur. When she celebrated her 90th birthday there in 1984 almost all the entire Royal Family were present. She died in 1989